Books to Bollywood
Course Description
A good story rarely stays put for long. Since the advent of cinema in India more than a century ago, novels, poetry, and short stories have been a constant source of inspiration. As these stories move across time, space, and media forms, their meanings also shift. In this course, we will study films alongside their literary inspirations, ranging from popular adaptations from the British canon to art film interpretations of Urdu feminist literature. We begin by examining the reevaluation of the British canon and the legacies of colonial education in India through recent adaptations of Shakespeare. We then transition to allegorical stories about the transition from Muslim to British sovereignty in South Asia in the mid-19th century, stories equally appealing to British imperialists and anti-colonial activists. Why did these stories become popular again in cinema of the 1970s and 80s? Moving forward, we examine the promises and anxieties of decolonization and the early independence period, especially as those anxieties are routed through stories about womens’ place in society. Finally, we consider the long history of how literature and film came to be perceived as threatening, and the legal structures that have been used to suppress it.
Along the way, we ask how adaptation produces differences that make a difference. What are the risks and opportunities of transforming a short story into a two-hour epic? What are the power dynamics and potential aesthetic questions involved in shifting language of production from English to Hindi? Does the process of adaptation automatically uphold the values of the original, or can a story be made to speak against itself? Do you need a good literary source to produce a great film? Alongside these conceptual questions, students will also have the chance to gain familiarity with the terminology and analytic frameworks needed to write cogently about different media forms.
Meet the Instructor: Roanne Kantor
"My name is Roanne Kantor and I teach Global literature in the English department at Stanford. My research deals with the circulation of literature, audio media and film from South to North, and between different regions of the Global South. More than looking at exchanges across world areas, I'm also interested in the cross pollination between prestigious literature and popular art forms: citations of film in contemporary novels, famous poets who worked day jobs as advertisers, or audiobook actors who import their experience working on cartoons into nonfiction narration. Sometimes these circulations are surprisingly smooth, as in my first book about the unexpected influence of Latin American writing on Indian and Pakistani authors. Sometimes they are profoundly interrupted, as in my new work on early 20th century literary censorship between Britain and India. Although I'm appointed in an English department, I actually work across several different language traditions, many of which are on display in this class. I'm also a literary translator and the winner of the Susan Sontag Prize for translation."
Of related interest
