MONIKA MEHTA

Associate Professor, English Department

(Ph.D., Comparative Literature with specialization in Film and Feminist Studies, University of Minnesota, 2001) 
tel.: (607) 777-2318
fax.: (607) 777-2408 
e-mail: mmehta@binghamton.edu

Areas of Interest
New Media & Film Studies
Cinemas in South Asia
Postcolonial Critique
Theories of Nation-State
Globalization, Diaspora and Cultural Production
Contemporary Critical Theory
Feminist and Sexuality Studies

Current Projects
Book Project: Disjunct Economies: Libidinal and Material Investments in Bombay Cinema, which explores how processes which go under the name of ‘globalization' have reconfigured relations among Bombay cinema, the Indian state, and Indian diasporic communities.

Book
Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema.  Austin:  University of Texas Press, December 2011.
Censorship and Sexuality in Bombay Cinema.  Delhi:  Permanent Black, January 2012.
http://permanent-black.blogspot.com/2011/12/monika-mehta-censorship-and-sexuality.html
http://permanent-black.blogspot.com/2012/01/ravi-vasudevan-asks-monika-mehta-1.html
http://www.utexas.edu/utpress/books/mehcen.html
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_sb_ss_i_0_16?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=censorship+and+sexuality+in+bombay+cinema&sprefix=censorship+and+s%2Cstripbooks%2C310

Select Articles
"DVD Compilations: (Re)Shuffling Sound, Stardom and Cinephilia.  South Asian Popular Culture (under review).
"Re-framing Censorship," Velvet Light Trap (Special Issue on Censorship and Regulation), no. 63 (2009):  66-69.  (Round-table commentary).
"A Certification Anomaly:  The Self-Sacrificial Female Body in Bombay Cinema." Studies in South Asian Film and Media (inaugural issue) 1, no. 1 (209):  119-144.
"Globalizing Bombay Cinema, Reproducing the Indian State and Family."  (Reprinted) in Once Upon a Time in Bollywood: The Global Swing in Hindi Cinema, edited by Zenia Wadhwani, Deborah Barretto and Gurbir Singh Jolly (Toronto:  TSAR Publications, 2007), 20-42.
"Reading Cinephilia in Kikar Ha-Halomot / Desperado Square (2001), Viewing the Local and Transnational's Sangam/Confluence (1964), "South Asian Popular Culture 4, no. 2 (2006):  147-162.
"Globalizing Bombay Cinema, Reproducing the Indian Sate and Family."  Cultural Dynamics 17, no. 2 (2005):  135-154.
"What is Behind Film Censorship?  The Khalnayak Debates" (Reprinted and Revised) in Gender and Censorship:  Debates in Contemporary Indian Feminism edited by Brinda Bose (New Delhi:  Women unlimited, 2006), 170-187.
"What is Behind Film Censorship?:  The Khalnayak Debates," Jouvert:  A Journal of Postcolonial Studies 5, no. 3 (2001), http://english, chass.ncsu.edu/jouvert/v5i3/mehta.htm


Co-Authored Article
Monika Mehta & Nilanjana Bhattacharyja, " Bombay to Bollywood: Tracking Cinematic and Musical Tours" in Global Bollywood: Travels of Hindi Song and Dance edited by Sangita Gopal and Sujata Moorti (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2008), 105-131. 

Recent Lectures and Conferences
Invited Lecture. “Regulating DVDs.” South Asia Program, Cornell University, February 28, 2011.
Co-Organizer and Presenter. “DVD Compilations and Anthologizing State-Censorship.” Annual Comparative Literature Association Conference, Vancouver, March 31-April 3, 2011.
Presenter. “Satyam Shivam Sundaram: Im(proper)Suturing of Sound, Scar and Stardom.” New York Conference on Asian Studies, Cornell University, October 9-10, 2009Organizer, Chair & Presenter. “Remaking Race and Nation in Kaante,” Seminar on Remaking and Adapting in (Trans)national Contexts. Annual American Comparative Literature Conference, Harvard University, March 26-29, 2009.
Presenter. “Interdisciplinarity and Film Censorship in India,” Annual Conference Society of Cinema and Media Studies, Philadelphia, March 6-9, 2008.

Recent Courses Taught
Censorship
Postcolonial Theory and Film
Globalization and Literary Culture
Moving Pictures: Transnationalism, Diaspora and Film  
From Bombay to Bollywood: The Transformation of Hindi Cinema 
Introduction to Indian Cinema

Awards
Institute of Advanced Studies in Humanities Fellowship for Fall 2011
Dr. Nula McGann Drescher Fellowship for Fall 2009
Dean's Research Leave, Binghamton University for Spring 2008
Francis X Newman Award, Department of English, Binghamton University