Logo

Sundararaj Theodore Baskaran was bom in Dharapuram, Tamil Nadu. After his masters degree in History he worked for a while at Tamil Nadu Archives and later entered the Indian Postal Service. A recipient of fellowships from the Tamil Nadu Council of Historical Research and Department of Culture, Government of India, he has written extensively on Tamil cinema, wildlife and conservation in academic journals and leading magazines and presented papers at several international conferences on media and popular culture. He is the author of The Message Bearers: Nationalist Politics and the Entertainment Media in South India 1880-1945 (Cre-A, 1981), a standard reference work on the early history of South Indian cinema and popular theatre. Baskaran was a consultant for Encyclopaedia on Indian Cinema (OUP, 1994). He served as a jury in the National Film awards 2003. His book History Through the Lens: Perspectives on South Indian Cinema (Orient Blackswan) came out in 2009.