scholarly journals Consuming Bollywood

2020 ◽  
Vol 24 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Anjali Gera Roy

Hindi popular cinema, marked with sartorial, visual and material excess, has paradoxically portrayed acquisition of wealth or unregulated consumption as inimical to the Chaturvarga philosophy, or the idea that an individual should seek four goods – Artha (wealth), Kama (pleasure), Dharma (duty) and Moksha (renunciation) - in moderation in order to lead a balanced life. While its visual imagery is largely oriented towards Artha or pleasure, Dharma, in its meaning as duty, has been the prime motivation of Hindi or Bombay cinema’s characters and structures the cinematic conflict and action. However, Hindi cinema appears to have undergone a phase-shift in the new millennium in its new Bollywood avatar in which consumerist pleasure is not viewed as incompatible with altruism, or even ethical values. New millennium Bollywood cinema articulates a new esthetic of pleasure that is inscribed on the eating, drinking, singing, dancing, loving body that appears to be attuned to global consumerism. While pleasure and consumption have always been Bollywood’s signature tunes, never have they been represented as congruent with Hindu family values or social responsibility as they are now. Although Dharma still wins in the end in new millennium Bollywood, it is not viewed as being inconsistent with the pursuit of wealth and pleasure or Artha (pleasure) or even renunciation or Moksha (renunciation). Traditionally, Dana (Pāli, Sanskrit: दान dāna) or generosity or giving, a form of alms as a form of religious act enjoined upon the individual has legitimized pursuit of Artha (wealth) and ensured the individual’s Moksha (spiritual salvation). The new Bollywood film legitimizes the pursuit of Artha and Kama through a form of non-reciprocal giving or Dana through which Hindu philosophy has traditionally balanced the pursuit of wealth. This essay reads the new Bollywood film within the framework of Chaturvarga and Dana to argue that these structuring principles enable a cultural artifact to mediate and resist the neo-liberalist ideology adopted in the economic and political realm. In particular, it will focus on its articulation of the Hindu notion of Dana (charity) in the context of global consumerism.

2021 ◽  
pp. 174702182110092
Author(s):  
Quentin Marre ◽  
Nathalie Huet ◽  
Elodie Labeye

According to embodied cognition theory, cognitive processes are grounded in sensory, motor and emotional systems. This theory supports the idea that language comprehension and access to memory are based on sensorimotor mental simulations, which does indeed explain experimental results for visual imagery. These results show that word memorization is improved when the individual actively simulates the visual characteristics of the object to be learned. Very few studies, however, have investigated the effectiveness of more embodied mental simulations, that is, simulating both the sensory and motor aspects of the object (i.e., motor imagery) from a first-person perspective. The recall performances of 83 adults were analysed in four different conditions: mental rehearsal, visual imagery, third-person motor imagery, and first-person motor imagery. Results revealed a memory efficiency gradient running from low-embodiment strategies (i.e., involving poor perceptual and/or motor simulation) to high-embodiment strategies (i.e., rich simulation in the sensory and motor systems involved in interactions with the object). However, the benefit of engaging in motor imagery, as opposed to purely visual imagery, was only observed when participants adopted the first-person perspective. Surprisingly, visual and motor imagery vividness seemed to play a negligible role in this effect of the sensorimotor grounding of mental imagery on memory efficiency.


Author(s):  
Mariya М. Odintsova ◽  

A lot of modern psychological studies point to the inextricable link between the real and the Internet space in the context of the process of socialization of the individual, structuring the life scenario, in particular in the field of professional development. However, the integration of various predictors associated with the characteristics of the modern labor market and, as a consequence of career planning, life scenario is a methodological problem. To solve it, research design was applied, based on a combination of theoretical and empirical, quantitative and qualitative analysis. The aim of the study was the desire to clarify the role of the content of social networks in the formation of the life model of the professional sphere in the personal life space. It is suggested that the components of life models in the field of the profession broadcast on the Internet may be similar to the constructs already available in young people. The empirical research was carried out in several stages. At the first stage, semantic and content analysis of more than 170,000 posts over the past 2 years from the 20 most popular communities of the social network was carried out using special computer programs. The results of the analysis were the identified features of the components of the life model in the field of the profession, broadcast in the information space. At the second stage, the peculiarities of personal ideas of young people about building their own professional path, as well as the perception of the experience of parents’ professional activities were investigated. The sample consisted of 166 respondents; the average age was 21 years. The results obtained confirm the assumption about the similarity of the characteristics of the components of life models in the field of the profession, presented in the posts of Internet communities and the characteristics of the constructed life scenario in the field of the profession by the respondents themselves. The ideas about professional life and its further construction are probably associated with intergenerational transmission and traditional family values, the personal interests of a young person, his/her abilities, as well as with the tendencies learned in the process of intergenerational transmission of values and certain ideas in the circle of contemporaries presented on the Internet.


2012 ◽  
Vol 12 (2) ◽  
pp. 247-291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Irit Meir ◽  
Assaf Israel ◽  
Wendy Sandler ◽  
Carol A. Padden ◽  
Mark Aronoff

By comparing two sign languages of approximately the same age but which arose and developed under different social circumstances, we are able to identify possible relationships between social factors and language structure. We argue that two structural properties of these languages are related to the size and the heterogeneity versus homogeneity of their respective communities: use of space in grammatical structure and degree of lexical and sublexical variability. A third characteristic, the tendency toward single-argument clauses appears to be a function of a different social factor: language age. Our study supports the view that language is not just a structure in the brain, nor is it strictly the domain of the individual. It is very much a socio-cultural artifact. Keywords: community and language structure; sign languages; ISL; ABSL; variation; space; argument structure


2011 ◽  
Vol 36 (4) ◽  
pp. 367-370
Author(s):  
S. Suresh

Ethics refers to a system of moral principles - a sense of right and wrong, and goodness and badness of actions and the motives and consequences of these actions. In the business, businessmen must draw their ideas about what is desirable behavior from the same sources as anybody else would draw. Ethical values channelize the individual energies into pursuits that are benign to others and beneficial to the society. Ethical issues abound in HR activities, such as remuneration, labour relations, health and safety, training and development etc. This article offers insight into a detailed discussion of how ethical issues related to HR situations.


2019 ◽  
Vol 7 (4) ◽  
pp. 12
Author(s):  
P. Eshwara Murthy

Rohinton Mistry was born in 1952 in Mumbai, but settled in Canada, is a well known contemporary postcolonial writer. His novels portray modern India, focusing on conflicting situations and redemptive moments. His works Such a Long Journey (1991) A Fine Balance (1996) and Family Matters (2002) emphasize poverty, corruption and injustice intertwined with humour and tragic beauty highlighting the perception of life of the urban poor. Mistry uses both myriad and mixed experiences of a particular family to present the brokenness of modern society which is compounded by various and different memories and feelings. The paper throws light on community and the individual in Family Matters, it was published in 2002, and is Mistry’s third novel.  It has been rightly acclaimed as a masterpiece and also shortlisted for Man Booker Prize in 2003.  The writer’s humanity and compassion towards human beings relations and problems have been delicately portrayed. Rohinton Mistry’s Family Matters focuses upon the problems of un- belongingness and preservation of family values. The novel reveals the mutual equation of family members and family politics in the post modern society. The novelist delineates the importance of belongingness and preservation of family values through the most trustworthy institution named family and reflects the psychological stance of the members of family towards their aging and dying elders. The novel is a representation of harsh realities and selfish human nature of the characters who expresses the status of an individual in relation to family, community and society.


Author(s):  
Janilce Silva Praseres ◽  
Marcelo Ramos Saldanha

Abstract: human rights are a set of ethical values whose purpose is to protect and enable the realization of human dignity in its various dimensions and also prevent the reduction of the individual to the condition of object or, above all, the reduction of his condition as subject of rights, such as the right to life, freedom, security, equality. The universal character of human rights protection demonstrates some weaknesses, especially in the transposition into concrete legal systems, so what we propose is a brief analysis of human rights from Hannah Arendt.Uma Breve Análise Acerca dos Direitos Humanos a partir da Crítica de Hannah ArendtResumo: os direitos humanos são um conjunto de valores éticos que têm por finalidade proteger e possibilitar a realização da dignidade humana em suas várias dimensões e, ainda, impedir a redução do indivíduo à condição de objeto ou, sobretudo, a diminuição da sua condição na qualidade de sujeito de direitos, a exemplo o direito à vida, à liberdade, à segurança, à igualdade. O caráter universal de proteção aos direitos humanos demonstra algumas fragilidades, principalmente, na transposição para ordenamentos jurídicos concretos, assim, o que propomos é uma breve análise acerca dos direitos humanos a partir de Hannah Arendt.


2021 ◽  
Vol 5 (2) ◽  
pp. 157-168
Author(s):  
Feruza Rashidovna Murtazaeva ◽  
◽  
Lola Rakhimovna Babaeva

Abstract. The article is devoted to the understanding of family relationships in "women's prose". The material for studying the problem was the works of Victoria Tokareva and Zulfiya Kurolboy kizi, the study of this problem on the example of Russian and Uzbek "women's prose" allows us to deepen the understanding of the modern literary process, which notes that in the current world there has been a replacement of positions in the interaction of three different-level subjects: society, family and individual. The phenomenon of an inverted pyramid can be traced: if earlier it was based on an individual, and at the top – society, now they seem to have changed places – at the base of the pyramid was the society, and at the top-the individual. The family has retained its central position in this hierarchy, in the sense that it is both a channel for resolving contradictions between society and the individual. However, the emphasis has changed in the assessment of the importance of the family, there has been a re-evaluation of these models, which we observed, it seemed, quite recently, and those that are classified as alternative in modern conditions, the return of the family to the function of accumulating private property and passing it on by inheritance.


Author(s):  
Rini Battacharya Mehta

Unruly Cinema is a meta-history of Indian cinema’s emergence and growth in correspondence with the colonial, postcolonial, and the neoliberal state. Indian popular cinema has grown steadily from the largest national film industry to a global cultural force. Between 1931 and 2000, Indian cinema overcame Hollywood’s domination of the Indian market, crafted a postcolonial national aesthetic, resisted the high modernist pull of art cinema, and eventually emerged as a seamless extension of India’s neoliberal ambitions. The major agent of these four shifts was a section of the Hindi cinema produced in Bombay, which came to be named and marketed as Bollywood in the twenty-first century. Through a systematic exposition of four historical periods, this book shows how Bollywood’s current dominance is an unlikely result of unruliness, that is, of a disorganized defiance of norms. Perpetually caught between an apathetic and adversarial government and an undefined public, Indian commercial cinema has thrived simply by defying control or normalization. The aesthetic turns of this cinema are guided by counter-effects, often unintended and always unruly.


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