Writing Indian Stories: Radio for the Millions
As part of its Writing Indian Stories series, Columbia Global Centers | Mumbai, in partnership with Kitab Khana bookstore, invites you to an enriching discussion on the book Radio for the Millions (published by Columbia University Press and Penguin Random House in 2023).
From news about World War II to the broadcasting of music from popular movies, radio played a crucial role in an increasingly divided South Asia for more than half a century. Radio for the Millions , examines the history of Hindi-Urdu radio during the height of its popularity from the 1930s to the 1980s, showing how it created transnational communities of listeners.
Registration is required to attend this event. You may attend only in person.
Date: Friday, July 14, 2023
Time: 05:00 PM - 06:00 PM (IST)
Venue: Kitab Khana, Mumbai
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Isabel Huacuja Alonso is a historian of sound media and modern South Asia. Expanding upon her work on sound media and borders in South Asia, Huacuja Alonso has pursued related research interests that highlight the region’s pivotal role in global transformations. She is a co-editor of a forthcoming issue on WWII in India that analyzes the war’s influence in the subcontinent from an interdisciplinary perspective and argues for the centrality of war to the region and for South Asia’s crucial role in the global war. As part of a commitment to ensuring academic research and material reach a wider audience, Huacuja Alonso contributes to popular magazines and newspapers as well as engages in various translation projects. She, for example, translated an excerpt of Raza Ali Abidi’s very popular Urdu-language radio travelog on the Grand Trunk Road. Huacuja Alonso is also interested in issues of positionality and representation.
Fellowships from the American Institutes of Indian and Pakistan Studies (2011 and 2012), the American Council of Learned Societies (2015 and 2021), and the Institute for Historical Studies at University of Texas at Austin (2016) have funded her research. Her publications have appeared in Public Culture, South Asia, Bioscope, The Journal of Urdu Studies, SAGAR, and The Caravan and Scroll, among others. At Columbia, Huacuja Alonso teaches courses on South Asian history from an interdisciplinary perspective and on sound studies and media history in addition to Contemporary Civilization in the core curriculum.