Diaspora and Cultural Negotiations: The Films of Gurinder Chadha

by Shilpa Daithota Bhat (Editor), Lauren Bettridge (Contribution by), Shilpa Daithota Bhat (Contribution by), Susan Flynn (Contribution by), Cristina M. Gámez-Fernández (Contribution by)

Overview

Diaspora and Cultural Negotiations: The Films of Gurinder Chadha explores critical and theoretical conceptualizations of identity, globalization, intersectionality, and diaspora, among other topics, in the films of Gurinder Chadha. This book argues that Chadha’s work offers relevant and sensitive portrayals of the members of the diaspora community that make these films of contemporary and enduring value, highlighting their challenges in hybridization and acculturation in the societies they migrate to and the historical and political exigencies that influence their everyday existence. Contributors analyze Chadha’s films in the context of cultural milieus including multiculturalism, narration and representation, ethnicity, literary adaptation, and intercultural negotiations, while also exploring Chadha’s own role as an auteur. Scholars of film studies, Indian cinema, diaspora studies, sociology, and cultural studies will find this book particularly useful.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781666912869
Publisher:	Lexington Books
Publication date:	03/30/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	246
File size:	7 MB

About the Author

Shilpa Daithota Bhatis assistant professor at the National Forensic Sciences University (An Institution of National Importance; Ministry of Home Affairs) in India.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments

Introduction

Shilpa Daithota Bhat

Part 1: Transnational Culture and Contexts

Chapter 1:Gurinder Chadha as a Scriptwriter: the Auteur in Dialogue with Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni’s The Mistress of Spices

Cristina M. Gámez Fernández

Chapter 2: Gurinder Chadha: BrAsian Inroads into Planetarity

Alejandra Moreno Álvarez and Jorge Diego Sanchez

Chapter 3: Diasporic Crosscurrents: Gurinder Chadha and Mira Nair's Early Documentaries

Amardeep Singh

Part 2: Power, Perspectives and Cultural Representations

Chapter 4: ‘You may as well please yourself’: Resistance and Narrative Hegemony in the Films of Gurinder Chadha

Setara Pracha

Chapter 5: The Politics of the Possible in Gurinder Chadha’s “Quais de Seine”

Lara V. Kattekola

Chapter 6: Generation Matters: Diasporic Reality and Myth-Making in Gurinder Chadha’s Acting Our Age and What’s Cooking?

Izabella Kimak

Part 3: Socio-Cultural Spaces and Multicultural Negotiations

Chapter 7: Salad or Soup?: Feasts of Feminism and Multiculturalism in Gurinder Chadha’s What’s Cooking?

Reshmi Hebbar

Chapter 8: Negotiating Belonging: Multicultural education in the films of Gurinder Chadha

Susan Flynn

Chapter 9: Darkness on the Edge of Town: Growing up in the Suburbs in Angus, Thongs & Perfect Snogging, It’s a Wonderful Afterlife and Blinded by the Light

Lauren Bettridge

Chapter 10: A Negotiation of ‘home’ in Gurinder Chadha’s film Bend It Like Beckham

J. Sunita Peacock

About the Contributors

Editorial Reviews

This book is a remarkable work of diasporic scholarship of Chadha's cinematic representations. It examines the multifarious themes of migration through films and documentaries. Chadha's execution of the diasporic reality into reels is reviewed and critiqued through a theoretical lens by renowned scholars worldwide. The book traverses the borders and boundaries and navigates through cross-cultural spaces, multicultural negotiations, etc. This book marks a trend in the field of diaspora and media and it is strongly recommended.

Sireesha Telugu

Gurinder Chadha’s negotiation of multicultural spaces that are specific as well as representative has been critically examined in Shilpa Daithota Bhat’s collection of critical essays, Diaspora and Cultural Negotiations: The Films of Gurinder Chadha. This is a first of its kind and offers many insightful, critically valued observations on Chadha’s contribution to cinema, not only as a mode of entertainment but as an ’international language’ that breaks barriers and traverses across terrains on identity, diaspora and culture. This collection is important not only because of its contribution to the existing dialogue on diasporic identity and its representation in cinema, but also because it explores how history, politics and global cultures affect human experience and memories.

Shashikala Assella

Widely admired across the globe for her visual and cultural productions, Gurinder Chadha is among the pioneering voices of the diaspora. A book-length critique on this domain was eagerly awaited in international academia, and Shilpa Daithota Bhat has filled this lacuna by bringing Chadha scholars together on one platform through this book. Every essay in this book is seminal and different in terms of text, context, and criticism. This collection shall be a great treasure, as well as a guiding force, for academics working in the field of film studies.

Ajay K. Chaubey