Networked Bollywood: How Star Power Globalized Hindi Cinema by Swapnil Rai

In her new book, Networked Bollywood (Cambridge University Press, 2024), Swapnil Rai provides an interdisciplinary analysis of the role of the stars in the transformation of Hindi cinema into a global entertainment industry. The first Indian film was made in 1913. However, filmmaking was recognized as an industry almost a hundred years later. Yet, Indian films have been circulating globally since their inception. This book unearths this oft-elided history of Bollywood's globalization through multilingual, transnational research and discursive cultural analysis. Over the decades, a handful of primarily male megastars, as the heads of the industry's most prominent productions and corporations, combined overwhelming charismatic affect with unparalleled business influence. Through their “star switching power,” theorized here as a deeply gendered phenomenon and manifesting broader social inequalities, India's most prominent stars instigated new flows of cinema, industrial collaborations, structured distinctive business models, influenced state policy and diplomatic exchange, thereby defining the future of Bollywood's globalization.

This event is part of IRWG’s Gender: New Works, New Questions series, which spotlights new books by our faculty.  

Presented with cosponsorship from the Center for South Asian Studies, the International Institute, the Department of Film, Television, and Media, the Lieberthal-Rogel Center for Chinese Studies, the Women's and Gender Studies Department, the Center for World Performance Studies, and the Weiser Diplomacy Center.