Pasts in the Present
Pasts in the Present: History and Anthropology research seminars
The Centre for Comparative Social Studies (Faculty of Social Sciences) and the Institute for Culture & Values (VU University Amsterdam), present “Pasts in the Present,” a series of research seminars on interfaces between history and anthropology. In 2009, a selection of internationally renowned scholars will talk about their work. The title of the series reflects the recognition that pasts are constructed, used and contested in the present, but that these contemporary “pasts” themselves have histories. The seminars intend to address topics of interdisciplinary interest and are accessible for scholars, students and the interested public.
Stars in their eyes
Fandom and the making of Indian film celebrity in Soviet movie culture
By Sudha Rajagopalan (Utrecht University)
Wednesday 17 February, 12.45 -14.45 hours; VU University, Metropolitan, Room Z-113
Two megastars of the Bombay film acquired a wide following in the post-Stalin era. Drawing on audience letters and popular memory, this talk foregrounds the role of the active, avid Soviet audience in shaping Indian film stars’ celebrity but is also an implicit exploration of the inextricability of movie consumption from the discursive apparatus and cultural politics of the latter half of the Soviet era.
Sudha Rajagopalan is Research Affiliate with the Media Studies program in Utrecht University. She is currently working on new media in Russia and is also deputy editor of Digital Icons: Studies in Russian, Eurasian and Central European New Media.
Previous seminars
- Painting the Modern in Bali, by Professor Adrian Vickers (Asian Studies, Sydney University)
- Past Indefinite, by Jeanne Kormina (Anthropology, European University, St. Petersburg)
- Heritage in Asia, by Tim Winter (Archaeology, University of Sydney; currently Cambridge University)
- Gender pluralism - legitimacy and religious authority in Southeast Asian histories, by Michael Peletz (Anthropology, Emory University) and David Kloos (History, VU University Amsterdam)
- The Islam of Anthropology, by Christopher Houston (Anthropology, Macquarie University, Sydney)
- Recent Developments in Global History in China and the West by Dominic Sachsenmeier (Duke University. Currently, Humboldt University, Berlin)
- Mini-symposium Watching world history from Asia
