In this session we will discuss the relations between the city and the countryside with the help of Jean Lefebvre’s reflections on this question.

We take a look at a particular cultural form taken by the country-city dialectic in contemporary Indian cinema as expanded upon by a film scholar: the multiplex and a genre of cinema which connect migrant new economy labour to its small town and rural origins.

Readings:

Akshaya Kumar, 'Provincialising Bollywood? Cultural economy of north-Indian small-town nostalgia in the Indian multiplex', South Asian Popular Culture, 11:1,61-74 (download here)
Lefebvre, Henri, Writings on Cities (Translation, Introduction and editorial arrangement Eleonore Kofman and Elizabeth Lebas), Oxford/Mass, Blackwell Publishers Ltd, 1996 (download here)