Research Constellation Transitional Spaces, Culture & Media Studies at IDEAS: Office of Interdisciplinary Studies cordially invites you to the Talk by Dr. Brahma Prakash, Assistant Professor (Theater and Performance Studies), School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, on the topic "Dispossing Dance, Monopolising Movements: Cultural Surplus and the New Sites of Value Extraction in South Asia". The talk will be held on Monday, 7th April 2025, from 2:30 PM to 4:00 PM at Zenith, T3 - Ratan Jindal Academic Block, Ground Floor.

Abstract:
The talk will explore if and how cultural expressions are increasingly becoming the real sites of value extraction in contemporary capitalism, even as it faces limits of accumulation at the level of physicality. The valorization of the body – its hands, fingers, eyes and gazes being harnessed in producing surplus – move beyond its physicality, to open up into variations of art, performance and cultural expressions, into a new creative turn. Drawing from various rituals, festivals and cultural spectacles, Dr Brahma will explore the ways in which denigrated spheres of cultural labour get a new lease of life in the form of a creative economy maintaining both caste and capitalist relations.

Author Biography:
Dr. Brahma Prakash teaches Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is the author of critically acclaimed books, Cultural Labour: Conceptualizing the ‘Folk Performance’ in India (Oxford University Press, 2019) and Body on the Barricades: Life, Art and Resistance in Contemporary India (LeftWord 2023). He has also published in various research journals, including Asian Theatre Journal, Performance Research, South Asian History and Culture, Economic and Political Weekly and others. His popular columns on art, culture and politics frequently appear in Scroll, Wire, Outlook, Indian Cultural Forum and other media platforms.

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