Screen Goddesses: Shakti, Sati, Naginas and Other Female Deities in Indian Cinema
Tuesday, April 10, 2007 @ 7:30 p.m.
Gallery Theatre Rachel Dwyer
School of Oriental and African Studies, University of LondonRachel Dwyer is Reader in Indian Studies and Cinema at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London. She teaches courses in Indian literature and cinema, as well as the Gujarati and Sanskrit languages. Her main research interest is in Hindi cinema where she has published on film magazines and popular fiction; consumerism and the new middle classes; love and eroticism; visual culture; and religion and secularism. Her major publications include: Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema; 100 Bollywood Films; Yash Chopra; Cinema India: The Visual Culture of Hindi Film (with Divia Patel); and All You Want is Money, All You Need is Love: Sex and Romance in Modern India. Abstract: Dr. Dwyer’s talk will examine depictions of goddesses in Indian cinema, seeking to explain the relative lack of popularity of the Devi in comparison to Sita. She will look at mythological films, where the goddess appears as one of the film’s characters, and at the social genre, where an image of the goddess is efficacious. She will also discuss films that refer to mythological stories of the goddesses to draw comparisons with human characters.
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