| Course Title: Issues in Art History: 'Bollywood: A Cinema of Interruptions' |
| Start Date: 01/27/2026 End Date: 05/12/2026 |
| Term: Spring Semester 2026 |
| Description: Indian popular cinema, known commonly as Bollywood, is usually understood to have weak storylines, interrupted by overblown spectacles and distracting dance numbers. The course explores the narrative structure of Bollywood as what scholar Lalitha Gopalan calls a "constellation of interruptions". We will learn to see Bollywood historically, as a cultural form that brings India's visual and performative traditions into a unique cinematic configuration. We will analyze a selection of feature films, read scholarly articles, participate in debates, write guided assignments, and pursue independent research papers in order to understand Bollywood's uniqueness in relation to world cinema. |
| Distribution(s): I - Humanities , MP - Multicultural Perspectives , TP - Topics Course |
| Academic Level Of Course: Undergraduate | Credits:4.00 |
| Faculty | Phone | Email address |
| Ajay Sinha | 413-538-2473 | asinha@mtholyoke.edu |
| Meeting Dates | Method | Meeting days | Meeting times | Building name | Room | Frequency |
| 01/27/2026 - 05/12/2026 | Lecture | Tuesday and Thursday | 10:30AM - 11:45AM | TBA | TBA | Weekly |
| Requisite Courses | ||
| None |
| Comments |
| Additional Comments |
| Course Tags | ||
| ASIAN0001 | ASIAN: Asian Studies minor | This course has been approved to count towards the Asian Studies minor. |
| SASIA0001 | SASIA: South Asian Studies major | This course has been approved to count towards the South Asian Studies major. |
| PRI0001 | Used to identify primary sides of crosslisted courses for Workday conversion | |
| ARTH0004 | ARTH-4: Non-Western area | Course counts toward the ARTH major in the non-Western area |
| Cross-listed Sections |
| ARTH-290BC-01 Bollywood Cinema |
| FMT-230BC-01 Bollywood Cinema |
| Course Availability | ||||
| Section status: Closed | Capacity: 28 | Enrollment: 28 | Available: 0 | Waitlist: 0 |
BOOK INFORMATION
| Book List | Required | Publisher Full Price |
| To be determined. |
| Additional Book Comments |
| This is NOT the complete book list for this class. |