The economic and political/cultural impact and transformation due to neo-liberal policies and the globalizing agendas of capital are to be seen at the level of the region as much as they are at the national.  Indeed, under the thrust of global financial and technological forces the region as a linguistic, geographical and political entity is at once sutured to and independent of the nation.  The power of capital and corporations, often circumventing the national structures of power and governance, allows them to directly intervene into and shape the affective and ideological landscape of specific regions. The very process of integration into capital is disintegrative, heightening the region even as it dissolves its distance from capital.

This special issue of Studies in South Asian Film and Media invites articles mobilizing the framework of the region to articulate concerns in print, visual, literary, educational, performative, internet and other media.

Regions are distinguished by the pace and direction of change in political cultures and life style, struggles for resources and identity politics and the rise of new hierarchies of local power.  At the same time mobility, migration and disembodied interactions in cyberspace complicate the conceptual and experiential modalities of the region.

Several questions related to the economics and politics of language and literatures, print, visual, internet and educational media, forms, genres and identities will throw up new answers if reconfigured or addressed through the lens of the region.  The distinct geographical and linguistic formations, identities and markets of readers, fans, audiences, bloggers etc. also need to be explored via the matrix of the region. Equally urgent are the questions of ownership, access and mobilization of forms, channels and media of information and knowledge production.

Contributions (6000- 8000 words) are invited but need not be confined to the following topics:

  1. Language, statehood and markets.
  2. State government and policy (related to education, publication, creative production).
  3. Translation, publication.
  4. Landscape and identity.
  5. Authenticity and expression.  
  6. Caste, gender and representation
  7. New forms and audiences, readers, fans. 
  8. News Media and political power.
  9. Cinema- New directions
  10. Genre – literary, cinematic, performative.
  11. Politics and entertainment.
  12. Markets – production, distribution exhibition and consumption.
  13. Internet, digital technologies and the democratization (?) of creativity.
  14. Geography, space and affect.
  15. New practices of communication.

Abstracts of 500 words along with author bio should be emailed to aartiwani[at]gmail.com1

In addition to critical essays of 6000-8000 words, we also welcome shorter creative pieces of 2000-4000 words in the form of interviews, photo essays (B/W), speculative pieces, original translations of very short stories and poems from regional languages with or without poets/translator’s note reflecting on language, region, translation etc.

  • 1. All copyrights are to be cleared by the authors. Guidelines to the Intellect house-style are available at http://www.intellectbooks.co.uk/MediaManager/File/style%20guide(journals)-1.pdf