Ishita Tiwary

Ishita Tiwary's research interests include video cultures, media infrastructures, migration, contraband media practices, and media aesthetics. She has published essays in Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, International Journal of Cultural Studies, JumpCut, Post Script: Essays in Film and Humanities, Culture Machine,  MARG: Journal of Indian Art. 

Her first book Video Culture in India: The Analog Era (Oxford University Press, 2024) narrates the history of video technology in India since its introduction in the 1980s, locating the moment within the country's socio-political context. It aims to provide a comprehensive understanding of video technology in post-1980s India: one that speaks to its global history and context and fills the lacunae in the existing literature of the field. The monograph draws on diverse oral histories and forgotten archives to unravel the history of analog video in India. 

She is currently working on streaming platforms and their impact on media industries in India. She is also directs the research lab Raah which aims to examine the intersection of migratory processes and media practices.  Raah's project is a community-driven model, which hopes to bring together scholars, activists and community partners in a single space, becoming the first institutional hub in Canada for the study of media and migration.


Keywords:
video cultures, video platforms, media infrastructures, migration, informal media practices

2024-2025
PhD Seminar: FMST 804A: Global Video Modernities 

Undergraduate Course: FMST 326A: Approaches to World Cinema: Cinema and the City

2023-2024
Undergraduate Course: FMST 319A: The Moving Image and Society

2022-2023
Undergraduate Course: FMST 335 A: A Contemporary Introduction to Indian Cinema

MA Seminar: FMST 602: Methods in Moving Image Studies

2021-2022
PhD Pro Seminar: FMST 807/2214A: Media and Migration

Undergraduate Course: FMST 204/2212A: Approaches to Film Studies I

2020-21:
Graduate Seminar:    FMST665/865 Genre Crossings: From Asia to Hollywood

Video Culture in India: The Analog Era, Oxford University Press, London, 2024 

https://global.oup.com/academic/product/video-culture-in-india-9780198913221?lang=en&cc=tn

Streaming and India’s Film Centered Video Culture: Linguistic and Formal Diversity, International Journal of Cultural Studies, Vol 27, Issue 1, 2023

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/13678779231197696?icid=int.sj-full-text.citing-articles.1  

OTT is exactly what TV is not: Structural adjustments and Shifts in Indian Scriptwriting’,  in Ramon Lobato and Amanda Lotz ed. Streaming Video: Storytelling across borders, NYU Press, NY, 2023

The Fault does not lie in the stars: Indian Matchmaking and Gender Representation, JumpCut, JC61, 2022

https://www.ejumpcut.org/archive//jc61.2022/IshitaTiwari/index.html

Video and the Moment of Legal Disruption, in Siddharth Narrain ed. The Acts of Media: Law and Media in Contemporary India, ICAS, Sage, 2022  

https://perspectivia.net/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/pnet_derivate_00006003/tiwary_video.pdf

Unsettling News: Newstrack and the Video Event, Special Issue on Media Populism, Culture Machine, Vol 19 Nov 2020 

https://culturemachine.net/vol-19-media-populism/unsettling-news-newstrack-and-the-video-event-ishita-tiwary/

Amazon Prime Video and the Indian Media Market: A Platform Ecosphere, in Adrian Athique and Vibodh Parthasarthy ed. Platform Capitalism in India, Springer, 2020 

https://www.springerprofessional.de/en/amazon-prime-video-a-platform-ecosphere/18413024

Video News Magazine as Documentary Evidence: The Case of Kalchakra, Special Issue on Indian Documentary ed. Ravi Vasudevan, Marg: Journal of Indian Art, Mumbai, Marg Publication, September 2018 

Screening Conjugality: The Affective Infrastructure of the Marriage Video, Special Issue: Home Video and Media Texts, PostScript: Essays in Film and Humanities, Vol 35, No. 3, Summer 2016, 21-36 

The First Wave of Media Piracy, Malegaon Cinema Industry (India, 1980s-2000s), ed Nicolas Maigret & Maria Rozkowska, The Pirate Book, Akskioma, Ljubljana, 2015

http://thepiratebook.net/wp-content/uploads/The_Pirate_Book.pdf

The Discrete Charm of Local Practices: Malegaon and the Politics of Locality, Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, Vol 6, No 1, 2015, 67-87 

https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0974927615586928

The Suitcase Entrepreneur : Migrating Media Technologies, Migration Mapping Newsletter, Aug 2020

https://migrationmapping.org/august-newsletter-ishita-tiwary-on-migrating-media-technologies-guillermina-zabala-on-immigrant-art/

Dossier on Netflix in India for the Global Internet Television Consortium. Available at < https://global-internet-tv.com/netflix-country-reports/india/> 

Dossier on Amazon Prime Video in India for Global Internet Television Internet Consortium < https://global-internet-tv.com/india-amazon-prime-video/> 

Book Review, 'The Actors and Characters of Satyajit Ray', The Wire, 02/03/2019, Available at <https://thewire.in/books/book-review-the-actors-and-characters-of-satyajit-ray> 

Book Review of Kevin Swanson and Michael Curtin ed. Voices of Labour: Creativity, Craft and Conflict in Global Hollywood, Synoptique: Online Journal of Film and Moving Image Studies, Nov 2019

https://synoptique.ca/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/8.2-Tiwary-Book-Review.pdf

Book Review of Ajay Gehlawat, Twenty First Century Bollywood, Studies in South Asian Film and Media, Vol 8, Issue 1, 80-84, October 2016 

https://www.ingentaconnect.com/contentone/intellect/safm/2016/00000008/00000001/art00004;jsessionid=2na4d5d7ph39s.x-ic-live-03