Organised by Till Kadritzke, Research Area 4: "Literary Currencies" in cooperation with the Research Training Group (RTG) Minor Cosmopolitanisms, University of Potsdam.

With Yogesh Maitreya (poet and publisher-owner of Panther's Paw Publications), Parthasarathi Muthukaruppan (The English and Foreign Languages University, Hyderabad) and Florian Schybilski (University of Potsdam).

The savarna gaze – film critic and director Rajesh Rajamani's shorthand for how caste discrimination reflects in Indian media – describes an ideological echo chamber in which certain ways of seeing that are complacent with elitist, 'upper' caste norms are re-entrenched in media production without being questioned. This aesthetics continues the oppression of 'lower' castes in post-colonial India, and ex-untouchable communities self-identifying as Dalits in particular. Through their heteronomous, stereotypical depiction on-screen, the caste-oppressed are made into an internal Other while off-screen they are excluded from positions of power in the Indian media.

Yogesh Maitreya has just published the collection of essays Cinema – Dignity, Identity and Beautiful critiquing the savarna gaze in the Indian film industry. Taking the important step beyond mere criticism, the book throws spotlights on a whole range of contemporary movies that transport anti-caste messages in ways that are sensitive to and empowering for the Dalit community. He thus raises the question of what is there to be learned from successful interventions into the popular medium of film from an anti-caste perspective. To answer this question, Yogesh will be in conversation with cultural critic and specialist for Tamil cinema, Parthasarathi Muthukaruppan, and Florian Schybilski who researches caste on the discursive level. Together they will explore the current realities of media production in relation to caste and focus the discussion on new ways of tackling caste discrimination through a selection of scenes from the anti-caste films addressed in Yogesh's book.