Screening Culture, Viewing Politics

"Purnima Mankekar has crafted a compelling and richly informed account of one of the most difficult of anthropological topics: the power of television to turn local and gendered intimacies into--literally--gripping allegories of national identity. Fusing scholarship and elegance in an exceptionally accessible narrative, she attends to audiences as well as texts. In this way, she provides an exemplary demonstration of how superb ethnography can best disentangle the actual complexities behind the usual cant about modernity, nationalism, and the media."--Michael Herzfeld, author of "Portrait of a Greek Imagination"