stanford: Lecture & Film, May 10 at 6:30pm: "Reconstituting Banality: Ritual Sacrifice and Collective Identity"

may 6th, 2010

yet another stanford event denigrating hindus and hinduism.

this is turning out to be quite a cottage industry at stanford. wendy's children ki jai.

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Tatiana Deogirikar <tanya@stanford.edu>
Date: 2010/5/6
Subject: Lecture & Film, May 10 at 6:30pm: "Reconstituting Banality: Ritual Sacrifice and Collective Identity"
To: Center for South Asia <southasia@lists.stanford.edu>

The Center for South Asia and 

The Program in Modern Thought and Literature present

Reconstituting Banality: 

Ritual Sacrifice and Collective Identity in 

Ashish Avikunthak's  Kalighat Fetish

Malasree Neepa Acharya

The lecture will include a screening of the film Kalighat Fetish (1999,

22 minutes), an  experimental film that explores the ceremonial

veneration of the goddess Kali, the mother deity of Kolkata, through

gazes on everyday practices of goat sacrifice, collective celebration,

and the age-old tradition of " bahurupee" cross-dressing as the mother

goddess herself. 

Monday, May 10, 2010;  6:30 p.m.

Bldg 200 (History Corner), Room 202

Malasree Neepa Acharya graduated from Stanford  (M.A. Anthropology 2007, B.A. Hons. Public Policy 2006).  

She is currently a doctoral candidate in the Migration and Development Research Cluster, 

Institute for Social and Economic Research, Vrije Universiteit Brussel

Ashish Avikunthak is an award-winning filmmaker and 

recent Stanford PhD in Anthropology.

'Reconstituting Banality' explores banality's productive potential

within the emerging experimental filmic genre of  Cinema Prayoga.

Ashish Avikunthak's film  Kalighat Fetish  (2000) represents an

archetype of these cultural products of the postcolony whose banal

subject matter constitutes a filmic genre between visual anthropology,

cultural studies, and experimental film .  The experimental short film

explores the ceremonial venerations of the goddess Kali, the mother

deity of Kolkata, through gazes on everyday practices of goat sacrifice,

collective celebration, and the age-old tradition of  bahurupee

 cross-dressing as the mother goddess herself. The film's distinct style

- pitting a postcolonial display of visual anthropology to outsiders of

Kolkata against a constant struggle for the spectator's mind to create

narratives from the visual interplay of the experimentation -

articulates the film's own gaze as a productive space for understanding

the potential of banality.  Within the paper, I explore the main themes

of ritual and sacrifice within the film and their respective reflection

of productive banality inspired by Lefebvre's and de Certeau's work on

everydayness while examining the cultural significance of the specific

instance of ritual sacrifice for the goddess Kali. I then look to the

role of postcolonial narratives and its role in constituting a

collective through banal practices - a trajectory where banality itself

serves as its own subversion and depoliticization of Western

epistemological thought and of the potential domination of the

oppressive other. Finally, I examine how the productive potential of the

banal is constituted through experimental film, based on the work of

Deleuze and Guattari on 'the virtual', a concept for grasping how the

experimental film as an open work of art allows for everydayness to

persist within a new modality of existence. 

For further information:   neepa.acharya@gmail.com

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