“Cinema at the End of Empire adds immeasurably to the fields of film, cultural, and colonial studies. Priya Jaikumar produces a whole new set of fascinating insights into the cultural expression of the demise of colonialism.”—Sarah Street, author of British National Cinema “Cinema at the End of Empire offers a sparkling account of the intertwined histories of British imperial and Indian colonial films. Challenging the frame of national cinema, it situates the cinematic representations of both empire and the nation in the conjuncture of late colonialism, and shows how films dealt with the pressures, anxieties, and challenges of decolonization. At once attentive to films and history, this is a truly remarkable book.”—Gyan Prakash, author of Another Reason: Science and the Imagination of Modern India “Extremely insightful and thought provoking . . . . The montage of tantalizing glimpses that Jaikumar offers into a complex and fascinating but underexplored domain of Indian cinema and the creative and significant connections that she makes (between, as well as within, national film cultures) will no doubt catalyze other important and much-needed work on the film cultures of colonial India and, more generally, in comparative film studies.”
Manashita Dass
Screen
“Jaikumar skillfully navigates treacherous theoretical waters to produce a book that is both historically rigorous and thoughtfully engaged in the study of form. . . . As the first book of a young scholar, Cinema at the End of Empire is impressive and promising. Jaikumar’s self-avowed ambition to “link form and history in a manner that actively resists universalization as well as notions of complete temporal rupture” (p.37) is not merely gestured toward but convincingly deployed.”
Bulbul P. Tiwari
Journal of Asian Studies