Film City Urbanism in India is about the reciprocal relationship between film and the city as two institutions that constitute each other while fashioning the socio-political currents of the region. It interrogates imperial, postcolonial, socio-cultural, and economic imprints as captured, introduced, and left behind by the politics of cinema. Film City Urbanism in India is located at the intersection of film history and urban history, setting up a dialogue between them. While telling the story of film in Hyderabad, the book also tells the story of makings and re-makings of the city. The term ‘film city urbanism’ is used in two ways in the book. The first, to discuss the role of the film industry, its labour, infrastructure, capital, and audience in the making of the city. The second, to discuss the phenomenon of ‘Film City,’ enclaves dedicated to film production. For clarity, the book uses the full name of the particular Film City such as Ramoji Film City and M.G.R. Film City to refer to the specific enclave under discussion and uses the term ‘film city scheme’ while referring to the general urbanization pattern through these enclaves.

South Asian historiography is dominated by the study of British India. The histories of colonial India stand in for cultural histories of modernity. Historians preoccupied with colonialism and nationalism have often relegated to footnotes other geographies (such as princely states) that are not conducive to telling the story of the nation.

Introduction

A scenario is a narrative that outlines a potential future that helps identify significant events, main actors, and drivers and their motivations and provides insight into the functioning of the world. Building and utilizing scenarios can aid individuals in addressing potential challenges that may be present in future. Scenarios are intuitive, analytical structures that vividly depict potential futures but do not provide consensus or predictions. They describe context and changes but do not dictate user responses. Scenarios serve as a strategic tool for analysing potential policy implications and responses to events, thus providing a common language for discussing current events and exploring future uncertainties for successful decision-making (Shell International, 2008).

Scenarios are compelling, yet challenging, narratives that outline the future, addressing uncertainties and not providing forecasts, projections, or recommendations. Building scenarios involves asking questions, providing answers, and offering guidance for action, aiming to broaden perspectives and highlight key issues. It provides insight into uncertainties and potential consequences, promoting informed and rational decision-making by highlighting potential outcomes of current and future actions. Scenarios explore real-world issues like system dynamics, structural changes, policy choices, technological evolution, and macroeconomic patterns, reflecting the fact that the future situations are influenced by human

actions. However, the age-old drive to contemplate collective possibilities and draw lessons for today remains (Raskin, 2005).

Scenario as solutions

Scenario planning is an imaginative process that involves hypothetically imagining the future, which is considered an innate human activity, allowing us to think about it and plan for it (Hughes, 2009). Scenario building can address real-world problems in various ways, as shown in Figure 7.1.

The ability to disarm through amusement distinguishes humour from other rhetorical forms. And humour’s function as an ‘anti-rhetoric’ uniquely equips it to advance agendas and disavow its own potency simultaneously, rendering even the most acerbic critique ‘just a joke’. As they engage audiences with material that seeks to redress power imbalances, whether through subtle jabs or blatant attacks, LGBTQ comics create awareness and identification, enlightening their audiences through humour. This chapter provides an analysis of contemporary LGBTQ comics, focusing on the rhetorical functions of LGBTQ stand-up comedy. Specifically, examining the acts of ten gay, eight lesbian, and two trans comics reveals the way this discourse educates audiences about LGBTQ culture, critiques homophobia, and creates identification and empowerment for performers and audiences alike.

This chapter is an interview with Schoenberg’s daughter, Nuria Schoenberg-Nono. In the interview, Mrs Schoenberg-Nono recalls a domesticated Schoenberg: playing games and making school lunches for his children, doting on his wife Gertrud, and strolling through the wilds of a then-undeveloped west Los Angeles. She recounts Schoenberg constantly musing about teaching and the best way to reach even the most obtuse students, and how the generosity of the Schoenberg family was sometimes taken advantage of by acquaintances who liked to stop by on the way back from the beach for impromptu parties. In all, Nuria Schoenberg-Nono paints a portrait of Schoenberg is very different from his reputation as a ‘severe’ modernist; rather, in her memories, Schoenberg appears as a warm and kindly father and husband – and as sometimes delightfully quirky as well.

Stand-up comedy is one of the simplest theatre forms in existence. The comedian stands on a (usually) bare stage, talking straight to the audience in the hope of getting laughs. Yet it has never been more popular, with national scenes developing across every continent except Antarctica. In this insightful and accessibly written volume, diverse chapters explore the subject from many angles, ranging from national scenes, live venues, and recordings to politics, race, sexuality, and the question of offensiveness. Chapters also consider the performance dynamics of stand-up in detail, examining audience, persona, and trauma. Interspersed throughout the chapters are a series of originally commissioned interviews with comedians from nine different countries, including Maria Bamford, Jo Brand, Aditi Mittal, and Rod Quantock, providing rare insights into their craft.

The chapter introduces the idea of using networks inspired by Systemic Functional Grammar to model the relationship between constructions that express a semantic field. The example used in the chapter is Causation. From the work described in chapter 3, 105 verb argument constructions are identified as expressing Causation. A preliminary division is made between causing an action, causing a state, and causing a change in thought or emotion. Finer distinctions within each are then identified, with these distinctions being explained and modelled in taxonomies or Meaning Networks. Finally, the features that contribute to those networks are identified and expressed as independent choice networks, referred to as Systemic Networks.