Essays in Celebrity Culture: Stars and Styles

Description

The collection of essays in the book moves from the largest domain of celebrity culture in India - Bollywood - through celebrity life writing and biopics and, finally, to the politics of and by celebrity culture. The book begins with an exploration of films made around celebrity victims to the vernacular cosmopolitanism of Bollywood stars' philanthropic and humanitarian work and, finally, to celebrity charisma and its role in the current era of 'post-truth.' Two studies of celebrity biopics and auto/biographies - from sports stars to Bollywood stars - and their disease memoirs are included. Finally, a section of essays are devoted to celebrity cultural politics, including Indian writing as a celebrity, the Narmada River as a celebrity, the desacralization of celebrity statues, Arundhati Roy's celebrated and celebrity activism and the self-fashioning of Indian authors in the age of digital culture.

Pramod K Nayar teaches at the Department of English, University of Hyderabad. He is the author of many books, including Indian Travel Writing in the Age of Empire (2020), and has contributed to essays in leading journals.

'Pramod Nayar has built up an extensive body of work on Indian celebrity, as this vivid and wide-ranging volume showcases so well. The book is an important and engaging contribution to the transnational field of celebrity studies.' - Professor Jo Littler, City, University of London, UK. 'In this outstanding collection of essays, Pramod K. Nayar explores both the molecular and cosmic reach of stardom and celebrity as it travels across Indian art and culture. Addressing film, literature, biography and the social media, Nayar writes with eloquence, analytical power, as he explores modern India through the arteries and veins of fame.' - Professor Sean Redmond, founding editor of Celebrity Studies, Deakin University, Australia