AS 333LEC—South Asian Cinema: Bollywood and Beyond

This course is an exploration of post-2000 Indian films in Hindi, Bangla, Malayalam, and Marathi, and focuses on themes which found an urgent need for cinematic expression in India in the past two decades, such as class, caste, religion, gender, family dynamics, and globalization. Looking at both commercial and parallel films, the course focuses on “newness” in Indian cinema, and answers foundational questions about why something makes us laugh, cry, swoon, or ruminate when we watch these films.