UPDATE: DEADLINE FOR ABATRACTS EXTENDED TILL 31ST OF DECEMBER.

NOTE: WE ARE NO LONGER LOOKING FOR PROPOSALS RELATING TO "MUKKABAAZ".

Anurag Kashyap, as an Indian film director, is to be identified as one who found
himself in the crosshairs of transforming social-relations in post-liberalisation urban
India and that of fast changing reception of Bollywood cinema in the wake of
globalization. While Kashyap, incidentally, first tasted success in 1998, for the script
to Ram Gopal Varma’s ‘Satya’, it has to be noted that the trajectory of his
acknowledgement as an auteur-director has neither been consistent nor the most
traditional in the strictest sense of reception. Therefore, productions, such as
‘Paanch’ (2000), ‘No Smoking’ (2007), or even for that matter ‘Gulaal’ (2009)
received very little attention, only to be declared to be of immense ‘cult’ value a
decade or so later. His filmic oeuvre, often considered to be a part of ‘Hat-Ke films’
(Biswas, 2019), ‘Non-Bollywood cinema’ (M. Madhava Prasad, 2013), or even
‘Mumbai Middlebrow” (Devasundram, 2016); wherein, the self-consciousness of
being ‘global’ in terms of consumption of ‘World Cinema’ and producing ‘Bollywood’
films intertwine with each other, thereby creating a disruption to the narrative flow
of films by interrogating the pre-Economic Liberalisation grand récit of nation,
family and gender. This self-consciousness could be identified, as a possible
reformulation of the binaries of ‘Global’ and ‘Bollywood’ to replace that of the
‘national’ and the ‘modern’.
With his involvement in the Anurag Kashyap Films (2005-present) and Phantom
Studios (Formerly Phantom Films, 2010-2018), Anurag Kashyap began to be hailed
as one of the sincerest and well-respected ‘auteurs’ of neoliberal Bollywood, wherein
his films have not only remained a permanent fixture in foreign film festival circuits,
and has promoted newer directors such as Vikramaditya Motwane, Bejoy Nambiar,
Neeraj Ghaywan and debuts of ‘bankable’ actors such as Vicky Kaushal. Having been
an outsider himself within the Bollywood social habitus, Kashyap's meteoric yet
inconsistent rise from the margins to the centerfold of Bollywood, where in the global
flows of corporate capital meet the self-conscious cinematic of the internationally
respected auteur, augments the neoliberal mode of cinematic consumption and its
marketability in the best possible way.

This edited collection is seeking chapters on a wide range of topics that fall under the
purview of Anurag Kashyap’s films:
• Anurag Kashyap’s and the crisis of neoliberal masculinity.
• Anurag Kashyap’s treatment of the mob.
• Kashyap and perceptions of communalism in Bollywood cinema.
• Self-referential quality in Kashyap’s cinema
• Kashyap’s creative influence on newer generation of directors.
• Kashyap’s treatment of the ‘Hindi Heartland’.
• Kashyap’s cinematic application of history.
• Censorship and later cult acceptance of Kashyap’s cinema.
• Kashyap’s rejection and later acceptance of corporate funding.
• Kashyap’s fallout with Dharma Productions.
• Your Suggested Topic.

The Films of Anurag Kashyap will be proposed as one among the series of scholarly
editions for the Edinburgh University Press series of ReFocus volumes dedicated to
international directors. The ReFocus series is edited by Robert Singer, Gary D.
Rhodes, and Stefanie Van de Peer. This volume will be edited by Dr. Devapriya
Sanyal (Assistant Professor, Department of English, St. Joseph’s University) and
Rajarshi Roy (Assistant Professor, Department of English, Vivekananda Satavarshiki
Mahavidyalaya).

Please email your proposals of around 250--300 words to ak1anthology@gmail.com
by 1st of December, 2024. Subsequent decision would be communicated by 15th of
December 2024. Prospective contributors will be expected to submit their full
chapters of (approximately) 6,000-7000 words including endnotes (referenced in
Chicago style) by 30th April , 2025.

Devapriya Sanyal is Assistant Professor of English at St Joseph’s University, Bangalore where she teaches literature and researches on Film, Gender Studies, Urban Studies and Environmental Humanities. She is the author of several books on film and gender such as Failed Masculinities: The Men in Satyajit Ray’s Films (Edinburgh University Press), Gendered Modernity and Indian Cinema: The Women in Satyajit Ray’s Films (Routledge, UK), Salman Khan: The Man, The Actor, The Legend (Bloomsbury, India) and Through the Eyes of a Cinematographer: The Biography of Soumendu Roy(Harper Collins) She is presently working on her fifth manuscript, on post independence Hindi film directors. Her writings have appeared in national and international journals. She has degrees in English and Film Studies from Lady Brabourne College and JNU.

 Rajarshi Roy is an Assistant Professor of English at Vivekananda Satavarshiki Mahavidyalaya, Jhargram. He had earlier been a recepient of the UGC-RUSA 2.0 fellowship to translate Rabindranath Tagore's archival biography titled "Rabijibani" from Bangla to English.