Nandini Sikand

Courses:
FAMS 101:                   Introduction to Film and Media Studies
FAMS 102:                   Integrated Practice I  (FAMS 201: Making Media I)
FAMS 140:                   Media & Mass Incarceration
FAMS 202:                   Integrated Practice II (Making Media II)
FAMS 220:                   Film Theory: The Poetics and Politics of Film (W)
FAMS 235:                   Topics: Media Histories: Abolition
FAMS/WGS 255:          Women Make Movies/Movies Make Women (W)
FAMS 270:                   World Cinema
FAMS 302:                   Special Topics in Integrated Practice III
FAMS 320:                   Spectre of Race
FAMS 340:                   Documentary Theory and Production
FAMS 420:                   FAMS Capstone
DOC 150:                    Documentary Storymaking
FYS 015:                      Endurance of Race
THTR 274:                   Dancing Cultures: Embodying Performance

Research & Teaching Interest:
Race, gender, prison industrial complex, prison abolition documentary and experimental cinema, documentary ethics dance and performance.

Selected Publications/Filmography:
Languid Bodies, Grounded Stances: The Curving Pathway of Neoclassical Odissi Dance, Berghahn Books: New York, 2017.

“Choli ke Peeche Kyan Hai: What is Behind the Blouse” in Dance Matters Too: Markets, Modernities and Messages, editors Pallabi Chakravorty and Nilanjana Gupta. Routledge, India, 2018.

“Filmed Ethnography or Ethnographic Film? Voice and Positionality in Ethnographic, Documentary and Feminist Film” in Journal of Film And Video (peer-reviewed). Special Issue on Documentary. Volume 67.1-2 Fall/Winter 2015.

Films
Inside/Outside (94 minutes)  Producer & Director                2019
A feature-length documentary about incarcerated women reentering the community in the Lehigh Valley, PA.

One if by Land (14 minutes)   Producer & Director               2015
One if by Land is an experimental short film that explores the politics of undocumented immigration to the global North via land, sea and air.

Slightest Shifts (11 minutes)    Co-Director & Co-Producer            2012
Performed in a reclaimed industrial space, this film (re)imagines the “slightest shifts” that take place within our bodies and our surroundings as we reach toward and lay claim to new possibilities.

Cranes of Hope (17 minutes)    Director & Co-Producer          2011
Cranes of Hope is a documentary short about thousands of origami cranes, a boy named David Heard and the power of his dreams.

Soma Girls (27 minutes)    Co-Producer & Co-Director           2009
Soma Girls explores the lives of girls growing up in a hostel in Kolkata, India. From ages 6 to 17, the film follows these intelligent, funny and high-energy girls as they overcome extraordinary circumstances to lead ordinary lives.

In Whose Name? (11 minutes)    Producer & Director               2004
A filmic essay which explores the co-opting of icons by political agendas. This experimental short is told through personal narrative, Super 8mm home movies, Bollywood film clips and comic book art.

Amazonia (8 minutes)     Producer, Director & Editor             2001
Incorporating poetry, experimental video and Super-8 montage, this moving piece looks at the myth of Amazonian women – warriors who were said to have cut off their right breast to become better archers – and compares their legendary battles to the war being waged against breast cancer.

Mahasweta Devi (28 minutes)    Producer, Camera             2001
At the center of a half-century of tumultuous change, the lifetime of Mahasweta Devi, celebrated writer and tireless activist; has spanned the British period, Independence, and fifty years of postcolonial turmoil. In self-distribution by director

Don’t Fence Me In (55 minutes)     Producer, Director & Editor          1998
Against the broader backdrop of modern India’s political and social history, this lyrical documentary tells the story of the life of Krishna Sikand, the filmmaker’s mother, from childhood to maturity.

The Bhangra Wrap (20 minutes)     Producer, Director & Editor         1994
The Bhangra Wrap is an energetic documentary of a vibrant youth subculture that fuses hip hop, rap and Bhangra music.

Works in Progress:
“India’s Daughter/India’s Sons: Countering the Marketplace of Cinematic Rape”

“Gestural (Im)Politics: Activism in Contemporary Indian Dance.” Book chapter forthcoming in Oxford Handbook of Indian Dance: Transnational Routes. Editors: Prarthana Purkayastha & Anurima Banerji. Oxford University Press, Forthcoming 2021.