History and the Popular Gaze: National Cinema After Globalization
Christopher Chekuri, Neilesh Bose, Sean Hanretta
How has the teaching of film in history classrooms in the age of streaming transformed history classrooms? What is the integrity of national culture in an age when audiences are dispersed globally? How are popular representations of the past challenging history as practiced in its conventional institutional sites?
The papers in this panel take up these questions and explore film and history in diverse global locales and point to possible re-articulations of nation/global after globalization. If it can be said that academic historical practice held hegemonic sway over popular genres like film and fiction, in the past decade, we see the rise of popular challenges to the same practice. These popular challenges are taking the form of global, post-secular, majoritarian perspectives.
Neilesh Bose will explore the significance of a popular retelling of a history of decolonization in the Global North. He explores the story of the assasination of Patrice Lumumba as told in the 2024 film Soundtrack to a Coup D’Etat as a global story told in the Global North. Chris Chekuri explores the post-secular narration of tribal uprisings in the popular Telugu film, RRR, and asks how the film resolves post-secularity for a global audience. Sean Hanretta explores the rise of popular African film in the American classroom and the questions of translation of history and genre involved. All three papers examine how the past is portrayed in the new global and transnational context and ask what new global imaginings are visible after the era of globalization.