Introduction 1 the Postcolonial Cultural Industry: Notes on Theory
Notes Introduction 1. The list could be endless with titles such as Goddess for Hire (Sonia Singh 2004), Imaginary Men (Anjali Banerjee 2005), Bindis and Brides (Nisha Minhas 2005), Bollywood Confidential (Sonia Singh 2005), Trust Me (Rajashree 2006), The Hindi-Bindi Club (Monica Pradhan 2007) and the Zoya Factor (Anuja Chauhan 2008), which connects chick lit with cricket and is defined as the Ladki lit for the new millennium. 1 The Postcolonial Cultural Industry: Notes on Theory and Practice 1. Adorno was associated with the Institute for Social Research at the Frankfurt School, a social science and cultural intellectual hub for promot- ing socialism and overthrowing capitalism. It was responsible for creat- ing the philosophical practice referred to as ‘critical theory’, which takes the stand that oppression is created through politics, economics, culture and materialism, but is maintained most significantly through conscious- ness. He was among the first philosophers and intellectuals to recognize the potential social, political and economic power of the entertainment industry. 2. Adorno used The Dialectic of Enlightenment to summarize the theory on which he had been working for many years. Adorno had identified the theme of the cultural industry in the 1920s (although he did not use it until later), analysing the use of light music and jazz as commodified forms of music. All these things were written in Europe before Adorno had become famil- iar with the cultural situation in the US. After 1938, Adorno’s experience of US culture only reinforced his conviction. Later on, the cultural industry references not only the industrialization of production but also fields such as radio, film, music hall, fairgrounds, astronomy, newspapers and so on.
[Show full text]