From Bollywood to Nollywood: Popular Music Videos and the Representation of Culture and Belonging in the Global South

Instructor: Dr. Markus Schleiter

 

In this course we discuss recent ethnographic studies concerned with the consumption and production of music videos, as well as theoretical work from media anthropology. The aim is to explore the interrelations of media, representation, and everyday culture. We focus on two major media developments of recent decades. Firstly, contrary to the formerly assumed hegemonic cultural globalization of the West, the manifold music and film industries of the global South have successfully established artistic and popular formats that refer to Western trends but at the same time produce their own distinct audio-visual narratives and styles as well as new transnational media networks independent of the West. Secondly, with the emerging genre of the music video, visuals are playing a major role in the consumption of music and fostering new ways for listeners to identify with songs.

 

Ethnographic examples take us from film studios in Chennai, India, to cinemas in Lagos in Nigeria, as well as to the everyday lives of aspiring singers in Bihar, India. Furthermore, we will read about the visual forms and consumption practices of indigenous music videos, Bollywood songs, and heavy metal from Madagascar. How do songs inform and become incorporated into music consumers’ ways of positioning themselves and relating to youth culture, place, region, ethnicity, and other identifications? How do people use music to embrace cosmopolitanism and transnational social protest, and what new divisions emerge? How are indigenous activist videos framed globally? What characterizes the social worlds of musicians and filmmakers as cultural producers, and to what extent do those producers drive the transformation of cultural worlds?

 

The seminar will involve discussions and group work focusing each week on key ethnographic and theoretical texts that will be considered with reference to music videos screened in class. Students – individually or in groups – are required to analyze a video, an ethnographic case study or a theoretical approach and present their findings to their fellow students in any way they choose. Alternatively, students may produce their own music video and reflect upon the experience.

 

 

Work required:

- Close reading of the key text each week

- Individually or in small groups: Presentation (15 min.) of a subtopic, such as an analysis of a video, an ethnographic case study, or a theoretical approach; or of two responses to the readings (5-10 min. each). Alternatively, students may choose to produce their own video.

- Three critical essays on the readings (1-2 pages each) to be submitted before the respective sessions

- Submission of a summary of one of the seminar sessions (1-2 pages)

 

Recommended Literature:

Booth, Gregory D. and Bradley Shope 2014. More Than Bollywood: Studies in Indian Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Ginsburg, Faye D.; Lila Abu-Lughod and Brian Larkin (ed.) 2002. Media Worlds: Anthropology on New Terrain. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Gopal, Sangita and Sujata Moorti (ed.) 2008. Travels of Hindi Song and Dance: Global Bollywood. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.

Larkin, Brian 2008. Signal and Noise: Media, Infrastructure, and Urban Culture in Nigeria. Durham: Duke University Press.

Pandian, Anand 2015. Reel World: An Anthropology of Creation. Durham: Duke University Press.

Verne, Markus [2012] 2013. The Limits of Contextualism: Malagasy Heavy Metal, ''Satanic'' Aesthetics, and the Anthropological Study of Popular Music. Deja Lu Translations: 1-20, (https://www.wcaanet.org/dejalu/archive/issue3.shtml, accessed on 22nd January 2019).

 

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