U ponedjeljak 11. travnja 2022. u 11 sati u multimedijalnoj predavaonici Novog kampusa (117), dr.sc. Milica Bakić - Hayden sa Sveučilišta u Pittsburghu održati će predavanje pod naslovom Indian Epics and their Visual Transpositions.

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Drawing on the story traditions of the great Indian epics, the Mahābhārata and the Ramayana, early motion pictures in India created a genre of films with religious content that was in popular parlance called ’myhologicals’. These  early productions were based on the episodes and/or characters from the epic stories. Projected on the big screen, as if in „flesh and blood“, the epic heores, such as Rama, or gods like Krishna, would inspire the audience to do devotional prostrations. Hundred years later, while watching TV rendering of the Ramayan serial, the most popular program ever to be broadcast on Indian national television, the audience in rural areas would do the same, paying homage to the divinized epic heroes as if they were in a temple. We shall examine this connection between the epic narratives and their cinematic and TV transpositions and show that the immense appeal they have is possible because they are so well known to even illiterate massses. As one Indian scholar has noted, no Indian ever hears the Mahābhārata or the Rāmāyaṇa for the first time. Granted that the subject matter of Indian films have become varied reflecting the tastes of different audiences, to what the Bollywood cinematic output would attest, the visual renderings of the epics remain particualrly interesting because they are also used for political and not only entertaining purposes. The timing of the Ramayan serial is not accidental: it coincides with the growth of Hindu nationalism  and the affirmation of India as primarily a Hindu land.