Hindu Media Matters: A Conversation with Prof. Vamsee Juluri

Interviews and Discussions

00:00 / 01:25:58

Join Mukunda and Dr. Omari as we speak with Prof. Vamsee Juluri, Professor of Media Studies at the University of San Francisco, on a joint Brown Pundits and Meru Media episode. Prof. Juluri is the author of Becoming a Global Audience: Longing and Belonging in Indian Music Television, The Mythologist: A Novel, Bollywood Nation: India through its Cinema and Rearming Hinduism: Nature, History and the Return of Indian Intelligence. His work has been published in journals such as Communication Theory, Television and New Media, European Journal of Cultural Studies, and Critical Studies in Mass Communication and in various scholarly anthologies on globalization, audiences, and Indian cinema. He has also written numerous op-eds and feature articles for the San Francisco Chronicle, Times of India, Open Magazine, India-West and On Faith, among other publications, and is a frequent contributor to The Huffington Post and The Indian Express.

In this episode, we discuss a host of topics including:

00:01:20 Introduction to Prof. Juluri;

00:04:10 What is Hinduism according to Prof. Juluri; The idea of the vertical and horizontal;

00:14:55 The problem of trying to find the lowest common denominator of Hinduism;

00:25:40 Problems of thinking of rituals into scientific terms;

00:29:40 Recognizing Limitations of Theory and Thoughts;

00:35:00 Hindus position of weakness and the idea of a wounded people/civilization/culture; The impact of modernity on Hindus and Hinduism;

00:49.30 What is Hinduphobia?;

00:55:20 If Hinduphobia is real and prevalent why do so many Indian or Hindu origin people deny that it exists;

01:09:15 What is the role of cinema in expressing native experiences and modernity; using the examples of Kantara and Balagam;

01:23:00 Final Thoughts and Conclusion;

You can find Prof. Vamsee Juluri at: