Untimely Bollywood

“In bold divergence from representation-based studies of social identity in cinema, Amit S. Rai shifts our attention from the spectator’s encounter with a discrete film text to the media event or assemblage generating an ecology of sensations. Packed with original research, a heterodox range of theoretical influences, and innovative explorations in the idea of nonlinearity, Untimely Bollywood goes well beyond a study of globalization’s impact on India’s Hindi-language cinema. What it offers instead is a provocative thesis on affective and embodied experience under globalization’s new regimes of media consumption in India.” - Priya Jaikumar, author of Cinema at the End of Empire: A Politics of Transition in Britain and India

“Within a rapidly growing body of sophisticated work on Indian cinema, media, and popular culture, Untimely Bollywood stands out not only for its originality but also for its audacity. Its deft coordination of what at first would seem wildly heterogeneous topics is simply dazzling. There are wonderful discussions throughout that involve themselves in surprising but consistently illuminating topics, including art deco theatres, DJ culture, and Dolby sound in India. The movement through these topics is as often fun as it is enlightening.” - Corey K. Creekmur, co-editor of Cinema, Law, and the State in Asia

“Amit S Rai’s Untimely Bollywood is a provocative new addition to the fields of film, new media, and South Asian popular culture studies. . . . The scholarship is innovative in its emphasis on the sensory experiences under Bollywood’s new assemblage and compelling in its take on the politics and potentialities of the nonlinear.” - Madhavi Mallapragada, Popular Communication

“An excellent study and a look into this slice of the world, this book should be read by all with an interest in the new and old media assemblages of India.” - Badar Shah, South Asia Research

“What Rai presents is a semiotician’s paradise. . . . Rai’s spotlight on ‘controlled consumption’ is bound to resonate with readers who have given thought to similar exhibition in America. The author deftly ties together the creation of the multiplex and the birth of the blockbuster.” - A. Hirsh, Choice