In The News

Riots, Language and Britain’s Globalized Underclass

Garry Robson December 22, 2011
Violent riots broke out in Britain in August, and researchers, searching for reasons, examined the messages relayed by rioters over social media. Many of the calls to don disguises and join the mayhem were in a dialect labeled Multicultural London English by sociolinguists and Jafaican by the media – a post-racial blend that emerged from the more than 300 languages and dialects spoken by youth...

Bollywood: To the Next Level

Amy Kazmin November 1, 2011
India’s Bollywood, a prolific producer of films, but a marginal player in the global market, has launched a film designed to win over foreign audiences. Ra.One cost $30 million, a record for Bollywood but inexpensive for Hollywood, reports the Financial Times. It combines traditional Bollywood song and dance themes with state-of-the-art visual effects and fast action to appeal to Western...

Winds of Change: Cinema from Muslim Societies

Sheyma Buali October 10, 2011
Categorizing Islamic cinema is not easy, and analysis can prompt more questions than answers, as suggested by Sheyma Buali, for Arab News, in reviewing the Islamic film festival hosted by the Institute of Contemporary Art in London. The festival, “Winds of Change: Cinema from Muslim Societies,” explored the rich historical and cultural context of Islamic films. Films from Turkey, Tunisia, Egypt...

Brazil's Stand-Up Comics Lead Social Revolution Against Powerful Elites

Tom Phillips October 7, 2011
The powerful, never appreciating being the butt of comics’ jokes or withering commentary of critics, have long tried to keep a lid on criticism with ownership of media conglomerates and influence over media licenses. The freewheeling internet has changed all that, allowing comedy to take hold in nations like Brazil where the powerful expected unthinking deference. In the 1980s, jokes about...

Revolution Is Happening in the USA

Ismail Salami October 4, 2011
The Occupy Wall Street movement is hardly a revolution, and rather, the protest movement aims at influencing democratic leaders. Started by small groups of college students, protesters express concern about the dangers of high student debt, excessive corporate profits, family struggles with home foreclosures, widening inequality, environmental degradation all combined with a disturbing lack of...

Writing the Global Journey

Salil Tripathi September 12, 2011
The age-old quest for a better life, the ever-increasing speed of travel that forms the heart of globalization, has also transformed modern literature. London-based writer Salil Tripathi describes Amitav Ghosh and Salman Rushdie, both born in India and now living and celebrated in the West, as among the most successful authors in portraying an individual’s ability to survive and adapt to a...

Argentina Acts to Protect Local Films

Jude Webber September 7, 2011
More often than not, protectionism represents desperation. The Argentine state film institute has begun imposing fines on foreign film, reports Jude Webber for the Financial Times. The extra fees, to be levied on films shown on more than 161 Argentine screens, are intended to curtail mass releases of Hollywood blockbusters, Webber reports, and collect revenues “to protect national filmmakers.”...