SOAS University of London

South Asia Department

Rachel Dwyer

BA (London) MPhil (Oxon) PhD (London)
  • Overview
  • Teaching
  • Research
  • Expertise
  • Publications

Overview

Rachel Dwyer
Department of the Languages and Cultures of South Asia

Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema

Centre of Jaina Studies

Member, Centre of Jaina Studies

Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies

Member

Centre for Media Studies

Associate Member, Centre for Media and Film Studies

SOAS South Asia Institute

Academic Staff, SOAS South Asia Institute

Centre for Cultural, Literary and Postcolonial Studies (CCLPS)

Member

Name:
Professor Rachel Dwyer
Email address:
Telephone:
020 7898 4294
Address:
SOAS University of London
Thornhaugh Street, Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG
Building:
Russell Square: College Buildings
Office No:
457
Office Hours:
Please e-mail for an appointment
On Sabbatical:
On Research Leave, Term 2 (2016-17)
Website:
http://www.racheldwyer.com

Biography

Rachel Dwyer is Professor of Indian Cultures and Cinema at SOAS, University of London.

She took her BA in Sanskrit at SOAS, followed by an MPhil in General Linguistics and Comparative Philology at the University of Oxford. Her PhD research was on the Gujarati lyrics of Dayaram (1777-1852).

Professor Dwyer has published ten books, several of which are on Indian cinema. She has recently completed 'Bollywood's India: Indian cinema as a guide to modern India for Reaktion Books, London and Hachette, India.  She is currently researching the Asian elephant in India.

Teaching

Programmes Convened
Courses Taught
PhD Students supervised
  • Aakriti Mandhwani, Everyday Reading: Popular magazines and Book publishing in Post Independence India
  • Adrian Plau, The Deeds of Sita: A Critical Edition and Literary Contextual Analysis of the 'Sītācarit' by Rāmcand Bālak
  • Avni Chag, Strategies of Sectarian Institutionalisation and Survival: Textual Antiquation and Redaction in the Svāminārāyaṇa Sampradāya
  • Chinmay Sharma, The Mahabharata re-constructed for Hindi and English publics: modernity and the 'national epic'
  • Daniel Luther, Working title - Queering Normativity: Recovering the Small Voices of Sex in Literature and Film in India.
  • Eleanor Halsall, The Indo-German beginnings of Bombay Talkies, 1925-1939
  • Georgie Carroll, Working Title: Towards an Eco-Aesthetic of Indian Poetry
  • Guanchen Lai , Speaking from the village: modes of writing about the village in contemporary Hindi fiction
  • Helen Ashton, Listening to Indian Accented English in Film (1960-2013)
  • Jaya Shakira Madhvani, The representation of urban space in contemporary London narratives
  • Malgorzata Kruszewska, Sarasvati – Indian goddess of articulation. A textual and fieldwork study.
  • Poonkulaly Gunaseelan, ‘Breaking taboos (?)’: Representations of rape in post 1970s Indian-English literature

Research

Hindi cinema and film culture in South Asia; Hinduism; Gujarati diaspora

Expertise

For help in contacting SOAS academics and advice on services to business and the community, please contact SOAS Enterprise on +44(0)20 7898 4837 or email enterprise@soas.ac.uk.
For all press and media enquiries please call +44 (0)20 7898 4135 or email comms@soas.ac.uk

Available for
  • Radio
  • Press
  • Briefings
  • Short Term Consultancy
  • TV
Regional Expertise
  • South Asia
Country Expertise
Languages

Publications

Jump to: Authored Books | Edited Books or Journal Volumes | Book Chapters | Articles

Authored Books

Dwyer, Rachel (2014) Picture abhi baaki hai: Bollywood as a guide to modern India. New Delhi: Hachette.

Dwyer, Rachel (2014) Bollywood’s India: Hindi cinema as a guide to contemporary India. London/Chicago: Reaktion Books.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) Get started in Gujarati (Teach Yourself Language). London: Teach Yourself/Hodder. (Teach Yourself Language)

Dwyer, Rachel (2008) What do Hindus believe? London: Granta.

Dwyer, Rachel (2006) Filming the Gods: Religion and Indian Cinema. Abingdon: Routledge.

Dwyer, Rachel (2005) 100 Bollywood films. London: British Film Institute.

Dwyer, Rachel and Patel, D. (2002) Cinema India. The Visual Culture of the Hindi Film. London: Reaktion Books. (Envisioning Asia)

Dwyer, Rachel (2002) Yash Chopra. British Film Institute.

Dwyer, Rachel (2000) All you want is money, all you need is love: sex and romance in modern India. Cassell (London).

Dwyer, Rachel (2000) The poetics of devotion: the Gujarati lyrics of Dayaram. Richmond: Curzon. (London studies on South Asia, 19)

Dwyer, Rachel (1995) Gujarati: a complete course for beginners. London: Hodder and Stoughton.

Edited Books or Journal Volumes

Dharampal-Frick, Gita and Dwyer, Rachel and Kirloskar, Monika and Phalke, Jahnavi, eds. (2015) Key concepts in modern Indian studies. New Delhi/New York: Oxford University Press/New York University Press.

Dwyer, Rachel, ed. (2015) Bollywood. London: Routledge. (Critical concepts in media and cultural studies)

Dwyer, Rachel and Pinto, Jerry, eds. (2011) Beyond the boundaries of Bollywood: the many forms of Hindi cinema. New Delhi: Oxford University Press.

Dwyer, Rachel and Pinney, Christopher, eds. (2000) Pleasure and the nation: the history, consumption and politics of public culture in India. New Delhi: Oxford University Press. (SOAS studies in South Asia)

Book Chapters

Dwyer, Rachel (2016) 'Mumbai Middlebrow: ways of thinking about the middle ground in Hindi cinema.' In: Faulkner, Sally, (ed.), Middlebrow Cinema. Abingdon: Routledge, pp. 51-68. (Remapping World Cinema)

Ashton, Helen and Dwyer, Rachel (2016) 'Get on the train, baby!: Joining Kashmir and Kanyakumari through Hinglish and English accents and language in Chennai Express (2013).' In: Majumdar, Neepa and Mazumdar, Ranjani, (eds.), Blackwell Companion to Indian Cinema. Oxford: Blackwell. (Forthcoming)

Dwyer, Rachel (2016) 'Afterword.' In: Beaster-Jones, Jayson and Sarrazin, Natalie, (eds.), Music in contermporary Indian film: memory, voice, identity. Abingdon; New York: Routledge.

Dwyer, Rachel (2015) 'I am Crazy about the Lord: The Muslim Devotional Genre in Hindi Film.' In: Ali, Nobil Ahmad, (ed.), Cinema in Muslim Societies. Abingdon; New York: Routledge, pp. 118-129.

Dwyer, Rachel (2015) 'Innocent abroad: Shah Rukh Khan, Karan Johar and the diasporic star.' In: Dudrah, Rajinder and Mader, Elke and Fuchs, Bernhard, (eds.), Shah Rukh Khan and global Bollywood. New Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 49-69.

Dwyer, Rachel (2015) 'A star is born?: Rishi Kapoor and dynastic charisma in Hindi cinema.' In: Cobb, Shelley and Ewen, Neil, (eds.), First comes love: Power couples, celebrity kinship, and cultural politics. New York: Bloomsbury Academic USA, pp. 96-115.

Dwyer, Rachel (2015) 'I love you when you’re angry: Amitabh Bachchan, the star and emotion in the Hindi film.' In: Bandhauer, Andrea and Royer, Michelle, (eds.), Stars in World Cinema: Screen Icons and Star Systems Across Cultures. London: IB Tauris, pp. 13-23. (Tauris World Cinema Series)

Dwyer, Rachel (2014) 'The biopic of the new middle classes in contemporary Hindi cinema.' In: Brown, Tom and Vidal, Belen, (eds.), The Biopic in Contemporary Film Culture. London: Routledge, pp. 68-83. (AFI Film readers)

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'Bollywood's empire: Indian cinema and the diaspora.' In: Chatterjee, Joya and Washbrook, David, (eds.), Routledge handbook of South Asian diaspora. London: Routledge, pp. 407-416.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'Happy ever after: Hindi films and the happy ending.' In: Ssorin-Chaikov, Nikolai, (ed.), The topography of happiness from the American dream to postsocialism/ Топография счастья от Американской мечты к пост-социализму. Moscow: New Literary Observer [Novoe Literaturnoe Obozrenie], pp. 357-402.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'The Hindi film biopic.' In: Rosenstone, Robert and Parvulescu, Constantin, (eds.), The Blackwell Companion to Historical Film. Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 219-232.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'Le cinéma indien.' In: Bates, Karine and Boisvert, Mathieu and Granger, Serge and Jaffrelot, Christophe, (eds.), L'Inde et ses avatars: Pluralité d'une puissance. Montreal: Les Presses de l’Université de Montréal, pp. 275-306.

Dwyer, Rachel (2011) 'Bombay Gothic: 60 years of Mahal/The mansion, dir. Kamal Amrohi, 1949.' In: Beyond the boundaries of Bollywood: the many forms of Hindi cinema. Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 130-155.

Dwyer, Rachel (2011) 'Zara hatke!: The new middle classes and the segmentation of Hindi cinema.' In: Donner, Henrike, (ed.), Being middle-class in contemporary India: A way of life. London: Routledge, pp. 184-208.

Dwyer, Rachel (2009) 'Bimal Roy: a different kind of Hindi cinema.' In: Bhattacharya, Rinki, (ed.), Bimal Roy: the man who spoke in pictures. New Delhi: Penguin, pp. 162-171.

Dwyer, Rachel (2009) 'Ich mag es, wenn du zornig wirst: Amitabh Bachchan, Emotionen und Stars im Hindi-film.' In: Tieber, Claus, (ed.), Fokus Bollywood: das indische Kino in wissenschaftlichen Diskursen. Münster: Lit. Verlag, pp. 99-115.

Dwyer, Rachel (2009) 'Depictions of and by religious practitioners in films: Hinduism.' In: Lyden, John, (ed.), Routledge companion to religion and film. New York: Routledge, pp. 141-161.

Dwyer, Rachel (2007) 'Indian cinema.' In: Cook, Pam, (ed.), The cinema book. London: British Film Institute, pp. 221-223.

Dwyer, Rachel (2006) 'Planet Bollywood: Hindi film in the UK.' In: Sayyid, SHasan and Ali, N and Kalra, VS, (eds.), Postcolonial people: South Asians in Britain. London: Hurst & Co. (UK), pp. 366-375.

Dwyer, Rachel (2006) 'The saffron screen?: Hindi movies and Hindu nationalism.' In: Meyer, B. and Moors, A., (eds.), Religion, media and the public sphere. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, pp. 422-460.

Dwyer, Rachel (2006) 'Kiss or Tell? Declaring Love in Hindi Films.' In: Orsini, F., (ed.), Love in South Asia. A Cultural History. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 289-302.

Dwyer, Rachel (2006) 'The goddess in Indian film.' In: Goddess: divine energy. Sydney: Art Gallery of New South Wales, pp. 153-155.

Dwyer, Rachel (2005) 'Cinema.' In: Cush, D. and Robinson, C. and York, M., (eds.), The encyclopaedia of Hinduism. London: Routledge Curzon.

Dwyer, Rachel (2004) 'Yeh shaadi nahin ho sakti! (This wedding cannot happen!).' In: Jones, GW and Ramdas, K, (eds.), (Un)tying the knot: ideal and reality in Asian marriage. Singapore: Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore., pp. 59-90.

Dwyer, Rachel (2004) 'International Hinduism: the Swaminarayan sect.' In: Jacobsen, KA and Kumar, P, (eds.), South Asians in the diaspora: historiesand religious traditions. Brill (Netherlands), pp. 180-199.

Dwyer, Rachel (2004) 'Representing the Muslim: the 'courtesan film' in Indian popular cinema.' In: Parfitt, T and Y.Egorava, , (eds.), Mediating the other: representations of Jews, Muslims and Christians in the media. Routledge/Curzon (UK), pp. 78-92.

Dwyer, Rachel (2002) 'Landschaft der Liebe: die indischen Mittelschichten,die romantische Liebe und das Konsumdenken.' In: Schneider, A, (ed.), Bollywood: das indische Kino und die Schweiz. Museum fur Gestaltung, Zurich (Switzerland), pp. 97-105.

Dwyer, Rachel (2000) 'Shooting Stars: the Indian film magazine Stardust.' In: Dwyer, Rachel and Pinney, C, (eds.), Pleasure and the nation: the history, consumption and politics of public culture India. India: Oxford University Press, pp. 247-85.

Dwyer, Rachel (2000) 'Bombay Ishtyle.' In: Bruzzi, S and Gibson, P, (eds.), Fashion Cultures: theories, explorations and analysis. Routledge (London), pp. 178-190.

Dwyer, Rachel (1998) '“Starry nights”: the novels of Shobha Dé.' In: d'Haen, Theo, (ed.), (Un)writing empire. Amsterdam: Rodopi, pp. 117-133.

Dwyer, Rachel (1994) 'Caste, religion and sect in Gujarat: followers of Vallabhacharya and Swaminarayan.' In: Ballard, Roger, (ed.), Desh pardesh: the South Asian experience in Britain. Hurst, pp. 165-190.

Articles

Dwyer, Rachel (2017) 'Calling God on the wrong number: Hindu-Muslim relations in PK (2014) and Bajrangi Bhaijaan (2015).' The Muslim World, 107 (2). pp. 256-270.

Dwyer, Rachel (2015) 'Vighnaharta Shree Siddhivinayak: Ganesh, Remover of Obstacles, Lord of Beginnings, in Mumbai.' Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East, 35 (2). pp. 263-276.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'My Lord, the elephant.' Seminar: The Monthly Symposium, 651. pp. 39-42.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'The biggest star of all: the elephant in Indian cinema.' Religions of South Asia , 7. pp. 195-210.

Dwyer, Rachel (2013) 'Fire and Rain, The Tramp and The Trickster: romance and the family in the early films of Raj Kapoor.' The South Asianist: Journal of South Asian Studies, University of Edinburgh, 2 (3). pp. 9-32.

Dwyer, Rachel (2011) 'The case of the missing Mahatma: Gandhi and the Hindi cinema.' Public Culture. Special issue edited by Ritu Birla and Faisal Devji, 23 (2). pp. 349-376.

Dwyer, Rachel (2010) 'Hindi films and their audiences.' Marg. A Magazine of the Arts, 61 (3). pp. 30-39.

Dwyer, Rachel (2010) 'I am Crazy about the Lord: The Muslim Devotional Genre in Hindi Film.' Third Text, 24 (1). pp. 123-134.

Dwyer, Rachel (2010) 'Bollywood’s India: Hindi cinema as a guide to modern India (Based on inaugural lecture, Feb 5, 2008).' Asian Affairs, 41 (3). pp. 381-398.

Dwyer, Rachel (2009) 'Phalke, Dhundiraj Govind [known as Dadasaheb Phalke] (1870-1944).' Dictionary of National Biography.

Dwyer, Rachel (2002) 'Real and imagined audiences: Lagaan and the Hindi film after the 1990s.' Etnofoor, Vol. 1. pp. 177-193.

Dwyer, Rachel (2000) 'The erotics of the wet sari in Hindi films.' South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies, 23 (2). pp. 143-159.

Dwyer, Rachel (2000) '"Indian values" and the diaspora: Yash Chopra�s films of the 1990s.' West Coast Line, 32-34 (2, Autumn). pp. 6-27.

Dwyer, Rachel (1998) 'Hindi romantic cinema: Yash Chopra’s Kabhi Kabhie and Silsila.' South Asia: Journal of South Asian Studies. pp. 181-212.

This list was generated on Wed Jul 26 03:19:25 2017 BST.