Globalized Arts

Focusing on the confrontation between global politics and symbolic creative expression, J. P. Singh shows how, by integrating themselves into international markets, entertainment industries give rise to far-reaching cultural anxieties and politics. Taking examples from Hollywood, Bollywood, French grand opera, Latin American television, West African music, postcolonial literature, and even the Thai sex trade, he cites not only the attempts to address cultural discomfort but also the efforts to deny entertainment acts as cultural. He connects creative expression to clashes between national identities, and he details the effect of cultural policies, such as institutional patronage and economic incentives, on the making and incorporation of art into the global market. Singh ultimately demonstrateshow these issues affect the debates on cultural trade being waged by the World Trade Organization, UNESCO, and the developing world.