National Seminar on REFOCUSING THE PERSPECTIVE: BODY, IDENTITY AND STARDOM IN MALAYALAM CINEMA

Organizer: Post-Graduate Department of English, IQAC, KAHM Unity Women’s College, Manjeri, Kerala

About the Seminar

  • When: 20,21 October 2022
  • Call for Papers

Publication Details: Selected papers will be included in the ISBN book published by the department.

Invited SPEAKERS

Dr. Ratheesh Radhakrishnan, (Associate Professor, Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, IIT, Mumbai)

Mr. Zakariya Mohammed (Filmmaker)

Dr. Aparna Nandakumar, (Assistant Professor, Department of English, Providence Women’s College, Calicut)

Each culture produces and circulates its own body specific identities, and body, whether animate or inanimate is the central element of visuality and cinema. The concept of body and its
representations across time have been extensively engineered into reflections beyond comprehension, and cinema became a powerful narrative tool to circulate this concept through the
dynamics of stardom. Stardom is often defined as a composite creation which can envelop both the character on screen as well as the actor off the screen. However, the polysemic consumer plea could conceptualise the celebrity allure as a “semiotic receptacle of cultural meaning”. The metrics of contemporary stardom has shifted to a platform of hegemonic fragmentation, thereby keeping the doorway to new renditions of heroes and heroines. In this context, it is essential that we rethink cinema’s role in the production and circulation of defined identities through its star images over the years, within a specific location and culture. The seminar intends to excavate this transforming film ethos, with a special focus on Malayalam Cinema, and how the concept of viewing itself has been
influenced by number of factors, including the popular print culture. Malayalam Cinema, on a global context has always taken the aficionados to aesthetic edges and challenging corners and the disintegration of stereotypes have attached new strings to the cinematic landscape in Malayalam. Transcoding a stereotype can initiate a counter strategy whereby the existing patterns can be contested to the pathway of impermanence, elimination and at times atypicality.

Thrust Areas

  • Regionality and Malayalam Films
  • Caste and Malayalam Films
  • Gender and Malayalam Films
  • Female Stardom in Malayalam Films
  • Media and Malayalam Films
  • Language Registers in Malayalam Films
  • Queer and Malayalam Films
  • Adaptations and Malayalam Films
  • Life Narratives and Malayalam Films
  • Modernity and Malayalam Films

Submission Process

An abstract of 250 words can be emailed to
unityengseminar@gmail.com on or
before 10 October, 2022. On
intimation of selection, the full
paper is to be sent before 20
October, 2022.

Registration Fees

  • Participation
  • Faculty Members – Rs. 350
  • Researc
    h Scholars- Rs.250
  • Students – Rs. 150
  • Paper Presentation
  • Faculty Members – Rs. 500
  • Research Scholars – Rs. 400
  • Students – Rs. 250

Coordinator: Dr. Poornima R. (Assistant Professor of English)
Mobile Number: 9947039656
Student Coordinators: Ms. Bahsha K. (III Sem M.A. English), Ms. Manjima (I Sem M.A. English)

Regards

DR . MUHAMMED BASHEER UMMATHUR, Principal

DR . SHAHINA MOL A .K , HEAD, DEPARTMENT OF ENGLISH

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *