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The course charts a history of Bollywood, India’s mainstream Hindi-language film industry. Although dismissed for its use of melodrama and song-dance sequences, Bollywood has long engaged with other global cinemas and critiqued social, cultural, and political trends. Readings and films span romances about gender and nation like Mother India (1957) and Chaudhvin Ka Chand (1960); the 1970s "angry young man" oeuvre and its later avatars, crime and terrorist films; diasporic family dramas like Kal Ho Naa Ho (2003); and crossover hits like The Lunch Box (2013) that address the globalized present.