Indian Film Scholar to Perform and Lecture in October

Gayatri Chatterjee, a scholar in film studies from Pune, India, who has written and taught widely on the aesthetics of Indian cinema, will perform “Songs of Freedom: A Recital of the Songs of Indian Poet Rabindranath Tagore” Sunday, October 1, at 7:30 pm in Abbey Interfaith Chapel. On Wednesday, October 4, she will deliver a lecture titled “Show and Tell: Frontality and the Organization of the Look in Early Indian Cinema” at 7:30 pm in Dwight 101.

Chatterjee’s recital will focus on freedom, a central theme in Tagore’s writings and songs. The audience will also be treated to excerpts from an original recording of Tagore reading his poems. Acclaimed as India’s preeminent poet, Rabindranath Tagore (1861–1941) won the Nobel Prize for poetry in 1913. In addition to collections of poems in the Bengali language, Tagore composed hundreds of lyrical songs and set them to music. These songs are still sung in Bengal and all over India. Founder of Visvabharati, India’s first international university, Tagore spent much of his life working for peace and international understanding. His world tours included a visit and poetry reading at Mount Holyoke in 1930.

A member of the faculty of National Film Archives of India in Pune, India, Chatterjee’s interests include issues of history, nationalism, gender, the look, and discursive practices in the commercial Hindi cinema, as well as in “alternative” films such as those of Bengali director Ritwik Ghatak. Her book Awara, a major study of the classic Hindi film Awara (“The Vagabond,” 1951), won her the President’s Gold Medal for the best book on cinema (1993). Chatterjee is currently writing a book on the aesthetics of the look in Indian cinema, with special emphasis on the early period. The lecture is sponsored by the Asian Studies Program, the Film Studies Program, and the Purrington Fund of the Office of the Dean of the College. The recital is sponsored by the Asian Studies Program, the Purrington Fund, and the Office of Religious Life.

Photograph by Indira Peterson.

Indian poet Tagore poses with former MHC president Mary Woolley during his 1930 visit to campus.

Want to Learn More about Tagore?

Indira Peterson, professor and chair of Asian studies, will teach a course (Asian studies 272) in the spring titled Mahatma Gandhi and Rabindranath Tagore: Nonviolence, the Nation, and the World. The course will focus on the impact of Mahatma Gandhi and TagoreÕs thought on activism (for example, the civil rights movement in this country) all over the world.

Photo Courtesy of MHC Archives.