Lecture by Prof. Makarand R. Paranjape

Department of English presents
Gandhi on Celluloid: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma
Prof. Makarand R. Paranjape

Monday, April 21, 2014
3:00 p.m.
Arts 214, University of Saskatchewan

"Gandhi on Celluloid: The Life and Afterlife of the Mahatma" contrasts Richard Attenborough’s Gandhi (1982) with Rajkumar Hirani’s Lage Raho Munna Bhai (2006). The films represent different modes of popular cinema - Hollywood and Bollywood - the one largely mimetic, the other extravagantly romantic. Romance, in the latter instance, combines fantasy and melodrama so as literally to revive the spirit of Gandhi by showing how irresistibly he continues to haunt India today. The film’s new way of doing Gandhi in the world along with its perceptive representation of the threat that modernity poses to Gandhian thought is remarkable. Attenborough’s Oscar-winning epic and Hirani’s work show that Gandhi remains as media-savvy after his death as he was during his life. 
Makarand Paranjape is Professor of English and Chairperson, Centre for English Studies, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. His recent work includes Making India: Colonialism, National Culture, and Indian English Authority (Springer, 2013), and Altered Destinations: Self, Society, and Nation in India (Anthem, 2010). His forthcoming book with Routledge UK is The Death and Afterlife of Mahatma Gandhi.
All are welcome

For more information contact: Lisa Vargo
lisa.vargo@usask.ca