Cordial Cold War

Cultural Actors in India and the German Democratic Republic
1. Auflage 2021
ISBN: 978-93-5479-022-5
Verlag: SAGE Publications

Buch, Englisch, 312 Seiten, Format (B × H): 140 mm x 216 mm, Gewicht: 400 g

Reihe: Politics and Society in India and the Global South

Cordial Cold War examines cultural entanglements, in various forms, between two distant yet interconnected sites of the Cold War—India and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). Focusing on theatre performances, film festivals, newsreels, travel literature, radio broadcasting, cartography and art as sites of engagement, the chapters spotlight spaces of interaction that emerged in spite of, and within, the ambits of Cold War constraints. The inter-disciplinary collection sheds light on the variegated nature of translocal cultural entanglements, at work even before the GDR was officially recognized as a sovereign state by India in 1972. By foregrounding the role of actors, their practices and the sites of their entanglement, the contributions show how creative energies were mobilized to forge zones of friendship, mutual interest and envisioned solidarities.

This volume situates actors from the Global South as mutual co-shapers of the cultural Cold War, therein shifting its Euro-American and Soviet epicenters to Non-Aligned India. Going beyond official state channels of international political dialogue, it locates cordiality in the micro-histories and everyday experiences of interpersonal engagements, bringing to focus a hitherto underexplored chapter of India–Germany entanglements.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Bajpai, Anandita

Fachgebiete

• Sozialwissenschaften Politikwissenschaft Politikwissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Series Note
Acknowledgements
Introduction—Cordial Cold War: Actors, Sites and Practices of Cultural Entanglement - Anandita Bajpai
Collaborative Dialogues Across Theatrical Public Spheres: Invincible Vietnam in Calcutta and Rostock, 1966–1967 - Bishnupriya Dutt
Warm Wavelengths: Radio Berlin International during the Cold War in India - Anandita Bajpai
GDR Travel Writing on India - Anushka Gokhale
Socialist Germany and India: Entanglements in Cartography and Architecture 1949—1989 - Christoph Bernhardt
A Witness to History: Production of Images of India in GDR Newsreels - Reyazul Haque
Brecht between the GDR and Marathi Stage: A Conjunctural Reading of Bennewitz–Mehta Collaboration - Vaibhav Abnave
Cold War Entanglements: India at the Leipzig Documentary Film Festival - Veena Hariharan
‘Expressivity’ in the Art Collectives of India: The Realists and the Radical Painters and Sculptors Association - Rahul Dev
GDR—India Encounters before Diplomatic Recognition: A Chronological Overview - Joachim Oesterheld
Index

Über Autor(innen)

Bajpai, Anandita
Anandita Bajpai is currently a Research Fellow at Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient, Berlin. From 2017 to 2020, she was a lecturer at the Institute for Asian and African Studies, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany. She has been a postdoctoral fellow in the Modern India in German Archives, 1706–1989 (MIDA) Project funded by the German Research Council since 2014. She pursued her PhD at Leipzig Universität, Germany, and holds an MA degree in Global Studies, pursued at the Universities of Leipzig and Vienna (2006–2008).

Her previous research has focused on political rhetoric in India. She is the author of Speaking the Nation: The Oratorical Making of Secular, Neo-liberal India (2018). She is also the editor (with Dr Heike Liebau) of the Archival Reflexicon, an open-access bilingual archival guide, which is a platform for theoretical and conceptual reflections on archival architectures/organizing logics as well as thematic contributions on India-related holdings of specific German archives. See online: https://www.projekt-mida.de/rechercheportal/reflexicon/

Her current project focuses on cultural entanglements between India and the German Democratic Republic (GDR). In this direction, she is pursuing research on overlapping trajectories of the East German International Radio broadcaster, Radio Berlin International, and the Bonn-based radio station from the Federal Republic of Germany, Deutsche Welle. She has conducted extensive fieldwork in India and Germany, especially with journalists from the two radio stations and their respective listeners’ clubs in India.

She is the director of a documentary film on Radio Berlin International (its journalists based in present-day Germany and its listeners in Madhepura, Bihar, India) titled The Sound of Friendship: Warm Wavelengths in a Cold, Cold War? The trailer can be accessed here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T4qLiM_jflw

Bajpai’s Habilitationsprojekt (German professorial exam) on the Cold War looks at entanglements between India and the GDR by tracing the histories of friendship societies, theatrical circuits, comic books, miniature books, souvenirs and statues as material sites of engagement. Broadly, Bajpai’s interests include the Cold War, sonic/acoustic histories and radio as a medium, international film and youth festivals as sites of Afro-Asian entanglements, modern Indian history (particularly, Partition and the Nehruvian era) and political oratory of Indian prime ministers. Besides her own research, she continues to supervise BA and MA theses at the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.