Overview

Listening with a Feminist Ear is a study of the cultural politics of sound in Bollywood cinema. Taking as its subject the expansive domain of the aural in cinema, this book identifies singing, listening, and speaking in cinema as key sites in which notions of identity and difference take form. The book traces sonic representations of gender and community across seven decades of Hindi film history and asks which sounds and tongues Bombay and its cinema call their own. The book takes seriously the radical potential of listening and models a critical orientation to the aural that can engender new imaginaries, while still being attuned to questions of difference, power, and privilege. Keeping in play the many different sonic elements that films use, as well as the “inter-aural” fields in which those sounds register, Listening with a Feminist Ear helps chart new and interdisciplinary paths through the history of cinema. Challenging the ocular-centrism of cinema studies and its emphasis on medium specificity, the book offers a feminist interpretive practice that centers sound and listening. It also moves beyond national, monolingual, and Eurocentric frameworks, generating counter-hegemonic understandings of belonging so sorely needed in our times.

Full Product Details

Author:   Pavitra Sundar
Publisher:   The University of Michigan Press
Imprint:   The University of Michigan Press
Weight:   0.272kg
ISBN:  

9780472039371

ISBN 10:   0472039377
Pages:   282
Publication Date:   31 July 2023
Audience:   Professional and scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Paperback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   Available To Order  
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Table of Contents

List of Illustrations Acknowledgments Introduction Listening With a Feminist Ear Listening as Habit and Hermeneutic Soundwork Inter-Aurality Politics of Nation Singing, Listening, Speaking Chapter One: Singing From Singing to Musicking: Women’s Voices, Bodies, and the Audiovisual Contract Conjoining Sound and Image Playback Singing and the “Old” Audiovisual Contract Singing on Television The “Ethnic” Voice and the Aural Lag Millennial Soundwork Women’s Musicking and the Somatic Clause Chapter Two: Listening Re-Sounding the Islamicate: The Cinematic Qawwali and its Listening Publics Qawwalis’ Classic Features 5 Ishq Ishq! Romance in Classic Qawwalis World Music and Post-Liberalization De-Islamicization and Irrelationality In Sufipop Pious Listening in Dargah Qawwalis Spectacular Dancing in Item Number-Esque Qawwalis Chapter Three: Speaking Speaking of the Xenophone: Language as Sound in Satya From Cinematic Language to Dialogue-baazi Language, Politics, and Cinema Hindi Film Languages Accenting Bambaiyya Language, Violence, and Marginality Dhichkiaoon! And Other Cinematic Sounds Coda Listening, Loving, Longing Textual and Aural Pleasures Translation and Temporality Seditious Touching in Soundwork Bibliography Index

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Pavitra Sundar is Associate Professor of Literature at Hamilton College.

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