A Kerala Studies Blog
Pulp fiction in Kerala remains a genre that does not receive much attention, despite the significant role it has played in cultivating a reading culture in Kerala. Serialised novels in Malayalam weeklies had readers hooked for decades. Shibu B S delves into the rich world of painkili (‘songbird’) novels in Kerala.
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With streaming services bringing transnational attention to Malayalam cinema, it becomes important to examine the nature of Kerala’s “new gen” cinema and to locate it in a longer history. C S Venkiteswaran, film critic, Don Palathara, film director, and Jolly Chirayath, actor, feature in Ala’s first audio essay on cinema in Kerala.
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At a time when working from home, adopted at the height of the pandemic, is being presented as offering added flexibility for women in the workplace, G S Divya delves into the lived experiences of Malayali women in the IT sector to examine the patriarchal implications of ‘work-from-home’.
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K J Baby’s 1991 novel, Mavelimantam, is the story of the resistance of the Adiyor community against centuries-old slavery at a historical point where feudalism was joining hands with emerging colonial forces in India. Mileena re-reads the novel with reference to the concept of Dalitisation by Kancha Ilaiah.
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എം ആർ രേണുകുമാർ കുട്ടികൾക്കുവേണ്ടി എഴുതിയ മൂന്ന് പുസ്തകങ്ങൾ ഇവിടെ അവലോകനം ചെയ്യുന്നു. ആൺകുട്ടിക്കാലത്തിൻ്റെ സങ്കീർണ്ണമായ വിവരണത്തിലൂടെ ജാതീയത, ലിംഗഭേദം, അരികുവത്കരണം എന്നിവ യുവ വായനക്കാർക്ക് മുൻപിൽ പുനർവായനയ്ക്ക് വിധേയമാക്കുന്നു.
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Purushapretham has been among this year’s most intriguing releases so far, seeming like a police procedural at the outset but revealing hidden depths. Deepti delves into how the director draws viewers into a complex ecology of human and nonhuman actors, marking an exciting addition to the emergent ‘cli-fi’ genre in Malayalam cinema.
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Why are the state and the public unwilling to accept the hereditary rights of the protesting fisher community at Vizhinjam? In answer, the protests must be located within broader histories and discussions. Ala presents a translation of Sindhu and Robin’s article on the Vizhinjam protests first published in our September 2022 issue.
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How does Mammootty’s linguistic prowess enable him to move from being the Muslim “other” to an embodiment of the “standard” Malayalee man? Afeef Ahmed analyses the multiple ways by which Mammootty, both as an actor and an individual, negotiates his identity and selfhood through language.
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Urmila Unnikrishnan delves into the obscure history of the science popularisation movement in Kerala, tracing the activities of the Travancore Public Lecture Committee, which educted the common public through lectures, demonstrations, and exhibitions in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries.
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രോഗിയുടെ മരണം മുതൽ ചികിത്സയിലുള്ള അതൃപ്തി വരെയടങ്ങുന്ന വിവിധ സാഹചര്യങ്ങളോടുള്ള പ്രതികരണമായാണ് ആശുപത്രി ആക്രമണങ്ങൾ ഉണ്ടാകുന്നത്. ഗ്രാമതലത്തിലുള്ള പ്രൈമറി ഹെൽത്ത് കെയർ ക്ലിനിക്കുകൾ മുതൽ നഗരങ്ങളിലെ സൂപ്പർ സ്പെഷ്യാലിറ്റി ആശുപത്രികൾ വരെ ഇത്തരം ആക്രമണങ്ങൾക്ക് വിധേയമായിട്ടുണ്ട് എന്നത് ശ്രദ്ധേയമാണ്.
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