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William Mazzarella

Censorium: Cinema and the Open Edge of Mass Publicity

Friday, November 8, 2013, 3:30-5:30pm

Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, Wilder House
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Our inaugural 3CT New Book Salon will feature William Mazzarella‘s new book, Censorium: Cinema and the Open Edge of Mass Publicity. Censorium examines the role of film censorship in Indian Cinema, exploring how certain images trigger culture wars between traditionalists and cosmopolitans and between censors and defenders of free expression. Mazzarella asks whether images are censored because of what they mean, what they do, or what they might become and whether audiences must be protected because of what they understand, what they feel, or what they might imagine. Engaging questions of mass affect and collective meaning-making, the book spans colonial and post-colonial Indian cinema and shows how censorship is integral to the performance of political and cultural sovereignty in mass-mediated societies.

Introduction by Leela Gandhi and commentary by Zain Jamshaid