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Spectacle State

by Brahma Prakash
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Current price ₹390.00
Original price ₹599.00
Original price ₹599.00
Original price ₹599.00
(-35%)
₹390.00
Current price ₹390.00

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Book cover type: Paperback
  • ISBN13: 9789373073125
  • Binding: Paperback
  • Subject: N/A
  • Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers India
  • Publisher Imprint: HarperCollins Publishers India
  • Publication Date:
  • Pages: 304
  • Original Price: INR 599.0
  • Language: English
  • Edition: N/A
  • Item Weight: 230 grams
  • BISAC Subject(s): General

In today's India, power does not only govern -it marches, blares, dances and displays itself in colour, sound and action. From the beat of the drum and the glare of the loudspeaker to the rise of the bulldozer and the spread of the angry Hanuman, politics and power surrounds us - intense, sensorial and immediate.

In Spectacle State, Brahma Prakash looks at the contemporary Right beyond speeches and slogans and moves through a series of vivid scenes from everyday life, to show how emotion and feelings have been claimed by the Right. It is in this charged liminal space that violence appears in the garb of celebration, hate as preservation of self-identity, and devotion as display.

Moving between village processions, street performances, monuments, music and festivals, Spectacle State traces fear, pride, anger, piety are produced and circulated through the most innocuous of things. In the end, it asks: What happens when power, politics and hate batter the thin walls between culture and religion to produce a new language for a whole country?

Brahma Prakash is a leading cultural theorist, essayist and public intellectual based in Delhi. He teaches theatre and performance studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. He is the author of the critically acclaimed books Cultural Labour (2019) and Body on the Barricades (2023). He has extensively published in leading research journals and edited volumes in Performance Research, Asian Theatre Journal, Economic and Political Weekly and others. He was a visiting fellow at Cambridge University and Heidelberg University. His columns on art, culture and politics frequently appear in Outlook India and other media platforms. His opinions have also appeared in Al Jazeera, DW News and The New Arab, and popular podcasts in Hindi and English.

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