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Author Nakassis, Constantine V., 1979- author.

Title Onscreen/offscreen / Constantine V. Nakassis
Published Toronto ; Buffalo ; London : University of Toronto Press, 2023

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Description 1 online resource (xviii, 382 pages) : illustrations (some color)
Series Studies in the Anthropology of Language, Sign, and Social Life Ser
Studies in the Anthropology of Language, Sign, and Social Life Ser
Contents Introduction: Ontological Politics of the Image Introduction From Ontologies to Ontological Politics; Toward a Linguistic Anthropology of Cinema A Brief History of Tamil Cinema; For a "Tamil" Cinema Realism and the Mass Hero; Overview of the Chapters Part I: Presence/Representation: 1. The Hero's Mass; 2. The Heroine's Stigma Part II: Representation/Presence: 3. The Politics of Parody; 4. The Politics of the Real Notes; Interviews and Works Cited; Index
Summary "Based on over a decade of ethnographic fieldwork in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Onscreen/Offscreen is an exploration of the politics and being of filmic images. The book examines contestations inside and outside the Tamil film industry over the question "what is an image?" Answers to this question may be found in the ontological politics that take place on film sets, in theatre halls, and in the social fabric of everyday life in South India, from populist electoral politics and the gendering of social space to caste uplift and domination. Bridging and synthesizing linguistic anthropology, film studies, visual studies, and media anthropology, Onscreen/Offscreen rethinks key issues across a number of fields concerned with the semiotic constitution of social life, from the performativity and ontology of images to questions of spectatorship, realism, and presence. In doing so, it offers both a challenge to any approach that would separate image from social context and a new vision for linguistic anthropology beyond the question of "language.""-- Provided by publisher
Bibliography Includes bibliographical references and index
Subject Motion pictures and language -- India -- Tamil Nadu
Motion pictures -- Semiotics -- India -- Tamil Nadu
Motion pictures -- Political aspects -- India -- Tamil Nadu
Motion pictures -- Social aspects -- India -- Tamil Nadu
Motion picture industry -- India -- Tamil Nadu
Motion picture industry
Motion pictures and language
Motion pictures -- Political aspects
Motion pictures -- Semiotics
Motion pictures -- Social aspects
India -- Tamil Nadu
Form Electronic book
ISBN 9781487541804
1487541805
9781487541798
1487541791
9781487549060
1487549067