Description
Book SynopsisThe collection of essays in the book moves from the largest domain of celebrity culture in India – Bollywood – through celebrity life writing and biopics and, finally, to the politics of and by celebrity culture. The book begins with an exploration of films made around celebrity victims to the vernacular cosmopolitanism of Bollywood stars’ philanthropic and humanitarian work and, finally, to celebrity charisma and its role in the current era of ‘post-truth.’ Two studies of celebrity biopics and auto/biographies – from sports stars to Bollywood stars – and their disease memoirs are included. Finally, a section of essays are devoted to celebrity cultural politics, including Indian writing as a celebrity, the Narmada River as a celebrity, the desacralization of celebrity statues, Arundhati Roy’s celebrated and celebrity activism and the self-fashioning of Indian authors in the age of digital culture.
Trade Review‘Pramod Nayar has built up an extensive body of work on Indian celebrity, as this vivid and wide-ranging volume showcases so well. The book is an important and engaging contribution to the transnational field of celebrity studies.’ — Professor Jo Littler, City, University of London, UK.
‘In this outstanding collection of essays, Pramod K. Nayar explores both the molecular and cosmic reach of stardom and celebrity as it travels across Indian art and culture. Addressing film, literature, biography and the social media, Nayar writes with eloquence, analytical power, as he explores modern India through the arteries and veins of fame.’ — Professor Sean Redmond, founding editor of Celebrity Studies, Deakin University, Australia
Table of ContentsPreface; Acknowledgments; Introduction: Stars, Styles, Society and Spectacle; Part 1. Bollywood and Celebrity; 1. Victims, Bollywood and the Construction of a Cele-Meme; 2. Brand Bollywood Care: Celebrity, Charity and Vernacular Cosmopolitanism; 3. Celebrity, Charisma, and Post-truth Relations: Agnogenesis, Affect, and Bollywood; Part 2. Celebrity and Lifewriting; 4. What the Stars Tell: Celebrity Lifewriting in India; 5. Biopics; 6. Bollywood Stars and Cancer Memoirs; Part 3. Celebrity, Culture and Politics; 7. Indian Writing in English as Celebrity; 8. Watery Friction: The River Narmada, Celebrity, and New Grammars of Protest; 9. Mobility and Insurgent Celebrityhood: The Case of Arundhati Roy; 10. Desecration and the Politics of ‘Image Pollution’: Ambedkar Statues and the ‘Sculptural Encounter’ in India; 11. Authors, Self- Fashioning and Online Cultural Production in the Age of Hindu Celevision; Index.
