Worlding Tamil Cinema

Amrutha Kunapulli (The Ohio State University, USA)

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English

Routledge
10 July 2025

Films, movies & cinema; Asian history; Popular culture; Media studies; Media, information & communication industries

Series: Routledge Advances in Film Studies

Worlding Tamil Cinema is a simultaneous intervention in the study of world cinema and the cinemas of India.

With a focus on the globalising impulses of twenty-first-century Tamil cinema, the book explores the relationship between cinema, state, nationhood, and world cinema in the twenty-first century. On the one hand, the book argues for the limitations of studying Tamil cinema as ""Indian"" cinema by laying out the politics of nation, region, cinema, and statehood that have affected the cinemas of India, both in form and in content. In parallel, the book sets up a revised definition of world cinema as a category of cinema, revises the limits of world cinema as a field of film studies, and theorises the agentive process of “worlding."" These interrelated discourses become the framework within which to study twenty-first-century Tamil cinema as world cinema. As such, the book provides a history of the Tamil film industry, as well as historical trajectories of the various narrative structures of Tamil cinema, which highlight the already global past of the industry, while using them as a foundation for the study of contemporary cinema and its global tendencies. The chapters study what have been considered unique features of Tamil cinema–the star system, the comedian and comedy track, and song sequence–and the way they have been changed to adapt to the globalist tendencies of non-native audiences and globalising sensibilities of native audiences, especially in the digital media era.

This insightful volume will interest students and scholars of world cinema and cinemas of India, South Asian media and pop culture, and media scholars of the global south.

By: Amrutha Kunapulli (The Ohio State University USA)
Imprint: Routledge
Country of Publication: United Kingdom
Dimensions: Height: 234mm, Width: 156mm,
ISBN: 9781032817613
ISBN 10: 1032817615
Series: Routledge Advances in Film Studies
Pages: 150
Publication Date: 10 July 2025
Audience: College/higher education , Professional and scholarly , Primary , Undergraduate
Format: Hardback
Publisher's Status: Forthcoming

Amrutha Kunapulli is a scholar of cinemas of India, with an emphasis on popular cinemas of south India. Her work is situated at the intersection of world cinema and popular cinema, and includes engagements with stardom, fandom, digital media, popular culture, and cinemas of the global south. Amrutha has published in Studies in World Cinema and South Asian Popular Culture amongst other publications. She currently teaches at the Department of Theatre, Film, and Media Arts at The Ohio State University, USA.