Female Playback in Bombay Cinema

Voice, Body, Technology

Häftad, Engelska, 2025

499 kr

Beställningsvara. Skickas inom 7-10 vardagar. Fri frakt för medlemmar vid köp för minst 249 kr.

Drawing on sound studies and performance theory, scholar Shikha Jhingan explores the discursive nature of the female playback voice in Bombay film songs. Mapping the production, circulation, and reception of the voices of singing stars—notably Lata Mangeshkar and Asha Bhosle—Jhingan situates the singing voice as a cinematic object with limitless possibilities of distribution and dispersal. She employs the perspectives of a diverse range of listeners across a vast media landscape to illustrate how the affective charge of the female playback voice, combined with developments in audio technology, has led to a gradual expansion of opportunities for women in film, popular music, and media and audio production. With nuanced exploration of the way the human voice becomes intertwined with devices such as the microphone, radio, cassettes, and digital technologies, Jhingan argues for the sonic excess of the female voice beyond the narrative and visual. The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema is an authoritative addition to the field of sound studies with implications for gender studies, performance studies, and cinema studies.

Produktinformation

Utgivningsdatum2025-10-28
Mått152 x 229 x 21 mm
Vikt418 g
FormatHäftad
SpråkEngelska
SerieContemporary Approaches to Film and Media
Antal sidor296
FörlagWayne State University Press
ISBN9780814350942

Tillhör följande kategorier

Film inom Kultur
Teater inom Kultur
Musikhistoria inom Kultur
Musikböcker inom Kultur
Historia: särskilda händelser och ämnen inom Historia och arkeologi
Genusvetenskap inom Samhälle och politik

Shikha Jhingan is associate professor of cinema studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi. Her research focuses on voice, music, and sound in cinema. Her work brings a sound studies perspective to Bollywood films and their intermedial footprints. She has published in journals such as BioScope: South Asian Screen Studies, Feminist Media Histories, South Asian History and Culture, and Studies in South Asian Film and Media and in several book anthologies.

The Female Playback in Bombay Cinema maps a dazzling itinerary of the female voice from radio, gramophone, and playback through to audiocassette, television reality shows, and YouTube uploads. Shikha Jhingan pursues rigorous film, musical, and sound analysis with an alertness to the wider intermedial imprint of the voice. A landmark for the field. Ravi Vasudevan, codirector of Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies Building on the author's wealth of research across the long history of the recorded female singing voice in Bombay cinema, this groundbreaking book sets the scene for a long-overdue shift of scholarly focus from the visual to the aural. Jhingan surveys her field with authority, care, and passion. The book itself sings. Rosie Thomas, author of Bombay Before BollywoodThe Female Playback in Bombay Cinema shows how the sonic attributes and affective force of the female voice in Bombay cinema have been shaped by media assemblages, from the early days of playback to the televised reality shows and digital platforms of the 2020s. Jhingan's sensitive analysis of the shifting relationships between the visual and the aural, body and voice, makes an important contribution to cinema and sound studies within South Asia and beyond. Amanda Weidman, author of Brought to Life by the Voice: Playback Singing and Cultural Politics in South IndiaShikha Jhingan's book maps out the complex and contested destabilization and emergence of new norms for the female playback singing voice from the 1940s to the present, discussing changing relationships between voice, body, technology, and listening practices. Neepa Majumdar, director of graduate studies for the Film and Media Studies Program, University of Pittsburgh