[Commlist] Call for book chapters: Co-edited book on Film, Media, and Culture in South Asia

*Call for Book Chapters*

*
*

*Topic: “Towards New Paradigms and Theoretical Shifts in Postcolonial 
Studies in South Asia: Film, Media, and Culture.” *

Regional Focus*:*Pakistan, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Nepal, 
Afghanistan, Maldives, Bhutan

*Editors*

Dr. Rahat Imran: (nazsfu /at/ gmail.com) (Associate Professor, School of 
Creative Arts (SOCA), University of Lahore (UoL), Lahore, Pakistan)

Dr. Imran Munir: (imunir9 /at/ gmail.com) (Associate Professor, School of 
Creative Arts (SOCA), University of Lahore (UoL), Lahore, Pakistan)

Dr. Shweta Kishore: (shweta.kishores /at/ gmail.com) (Lecturer, School of 
Communication and Design, RMIT University, Vietnam)


Postcolonial Studies, Film Studies, and Cultural Studies have come a 
long way since classic texts, paradigms, and theories such as those 
introduced in /Orientalism/(Edward Said 1978); /Towards a Third 
Cinema/(Getino and Solanas 1969); /The Wretched of the Earth/(Frantz 
Fanon 1961); /Pedagogy of the Oppressed/(Freire 1968); /Unthinking 
Eurocentrism/(Shohat and Stam 1994), /Woman, Native, Other: Writing 
Postcoloniality and Feminism/; /When the Moon Waxes Red: Representation, 
Gender, and Cultural Politics /(Trinh T. Minh-ha 1989; 1991);/Nation and 
Narration/; /The Location of Culture;/(Homi K. Bhabha 1990, 1994); /Can 
the Subaltern Speak?/(Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak 1988), among others.

As a new millennium gets underway, this interdisciplinary volume aims to 
focus on revisiting existing postcolonial approaches, critiques, and 
arguments, to identify the shifts, emerging trends, and developments in 
specific relation to respective South Asian countries, and the region as 
a whole, taking into account each country’s colonial history, 
independence struggle, and emergent identity as it stands today.

We are inviting book chapters from scholars working on South Asia in the 
areas of Film Studies, Media/Communication Studies, and Cultural 
Studies, as well as combinations of the aforementioned, whose research 
and findings introduce new theoretical approaches that counter, or 
critique Eurocentric/Western approaches to essentially non-Western 
issues, histories, and struggles, and present fresh theories and 
paradigms for academic investigation. For example, what is the validity 
today of using the term ‘Third World’ in an era of rapid cross-cultural 
communication when technological advancements are shrinking spatial and 
temporal boundaries in terms of cinema, media, and culture? How is 
‘orientalism’ being redefined by South Asian societies themselves for 
marketing their cinema productions in the West? Is the West still /THE 
/stage for recognition (e.g. Pakistani documentary filmmaker Sharmeen 
Obaid-Chinoy’s winning of two Oscars in the USA to bring attention to 
acid-attacks and honour killings that take place back home in South 
Asia?) How valid are the Western formulations of /feminism /in South 
Asia where women’s human rights are still the bigger issue, and quite 
often intertwined with issues of religious and cultural identity? Why 
does South Asian academia still lean on Western concepts and theoretical 
approaches to define issues specific to their own cultures/region? How 
far, and why, have we failed to rid ourselves of the colonizer’s 
influence and intellectual hegemony? How far can such divisions be 
counter-productive as well? These are just some of the kind of questions 
this volume aims to look at to examine the politics of cultural 
exchanges taking place today, and the need to formulate and identify new 
theories and paradigms that South Asian scholars can apply to study 
their respective issues.

*Abstract*

Please submit an initial chapter proposal of up to 300-500 words that 
identifies your topic, area of enquiry (in relation to your 
country/regional focus), tentative chapter title, and an introduction to 
your proposed contribution. Your proposal should include your short bio 
and link to your affiliated academic department where applicable.

Please forward your proposal as a Word attachment to 
*(postcolonialmediafilmculture /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(postcolonialmediafilmculture /at/ gmail.com)>*


Abstracts due: March 31, 2019
Selection announced: April 15, 2019

*Chapters*

Chapter length: *6000 words*. Chapters will be sent for peer review.

Chapters due: September 30, 2019

The following are suggested broad topics and areas, but authors are 
strongly encouraged to define their own areas of interest and chapter 
titles:

*Cinema and Film Studies*

Role of Cinema in Promoting Human Rights and Social Justice; Activist 
Cinema; Oppositional Role of Cinema Against Religious Fundamentalism; 
Women Filmmakers, Gender Rights, and Violence Against Women; Advocacy 
Films and Pedagogical Role of Cinema (also in the academia); Political 
and Propaganda Cinema (e.g. films produced by government 
bodies/channels/Film Boards); Archival Role of Cinema as Historical and 
Counter-History Documentation (e.g. against violation of human rights); 
Influence of the Colonial Period on Film Production in the Colonized 
World; Commonalities of Postcolonial Themes in South Asian Cinemas; 
Cinema and Censorship Policies Under Authoritarian Regimes; Documentary 
Cinema as Expose; Common Themes of Human Rights and Social Justice in 
Third World Cinemas; Developments in Cinemas in the Muslim World; Muslim 
Women Filmmakers; Political Role of Music and Songs in South Asian 
Mainstream Cinemas; Cinemas of Resistance (e.g. Third Cinema); 
Contemporary Relevance of Third Cinema in the Developing World; 
Cinematic Stereotypes and Orientalism; Post-Third-Worldist approaches; 
Autobiographical Cinema; Postcolonial Politics of Entertainment Cinema; 
Developments in South Asian National Cinemas; Promoting Religious 
Identities in Cinema; Netflix and Disney’s role in South Asia; Role of 
Film Festivals and Emergence of Film Festival Studies in South Asia, 
among other topics.

**

*Media and Communication*

Political economy of new media; Public sphere, Globalization and media; 
Media, culture, and Communication; Disaster, terrorism, and 
Communication; Vlog for social change; participatory and community 
media; media institutions and infrastructures; historical and 
contemporary alternative media initiatives and organizations; useful 
media; activist media; media for self-representation; media and 
participatory democracy; media and censorship; social media, political 
participation and democracy; media for educational and science 
communication; media and broadcasting policy; NGOs and media 
institutions, resources and publics; UNESCO and media communication in 
the developing world; histories, experiments and discourses of media 
technology; convergence of broadcasting, telecommunication and internet; 
media conglomerates and public information; news representation; new 
media genres for social communication; online media, diasporic audiences 
and transnationalism.


*Culture*

Cultural politics; Literature of South Asia and/or comparative studies; 
identity in literature and visual arts; significance of geo-political 
and colonial politics of ‘Commonwealth’ and ‘Third World’ as literary 
and cultural identifiers; post-colonial feminist art and literature; 
representation of globalization, migration, diaspora in cultural 
production; decolonization in art curation; memory and oral history 
projects investigating colonial and postcolonial trajectories; 
collaborative, collective and critical modes of cultural production and 
consumption; globalization, social and cultural identities; folklore, 
theatre, and politics; culture, ideology, and religion in post-colonial 
contexts; historicizing and preserving colonial pasts in post-colonial 
contexts; post-colonial archives in South Asia; colonial architecture 
and post-colonial cultural identities; appropriating the colonial past 
in the present; prejudices, biases, and rejection of the past in the 
quest for an independent post-colonial identity.

Please direct any queries you may have to the editors:
Dr. Rahat Imran: (nazsfu /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(nazsfu /at/ gmail.com)>

Dr. Imran Munir: (imunir9 /at/ gmail.com) <mailto:(imunir9 /at/ gmail.com)>

Dr. Shweta Kishore: (shweta.kishores /at/ gmail.com) 
<mailto:(shweta.kishores /at/ gmail.com)>


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