Call for Papers for an Edited Volume of Essays on

Shakespeare and Indian Cinema

Shakespeare plays have been translated and adapted into many Indian languages. They have been performed in English and in indigenous performative forms like the jatra, nautanki and classical dance forms like Kathakali, as well. His plays have been adapted and appropriated in Indian cinema – Maqbool, Haider, Othello, Angoor, Shylock, Sairaat, Branti Bilaash, Hamlet, Gundamma Katha, Dil Bole Hadippa (a loose adaptation of Twelfth Night), Veeram to name just a few. There are films which use a scene, a dialogue, a reference to his plays, maybe a reference to a character and work them wonderfully into the context of the film. There are themes and devices so commonly found in Shakespeare’s plays used in Indian films, such as twins separated at birth, cross dressing characters, star-crossed lovers, characters falling in love with messengers, the wise fool, the tamed Shrew and the mousetrap device.

Abstracts are invited for a proposed volume of essays on adaptations of Shakespeare in Indian cinema. I am most interested in essays that deal not just with Hindi film adaptations but with cinema in all Indian languages. I am also interested in the way the Bard and his works are contextualized and re-contextualized in Indian cinema.

Possible topics might include, but are not limited to: 

-      Tropes seen in adaptations

-      Similarities or differences noticed in Indian adaptations of Shakespeare’s plays

-      The intersection of the local and the global

-      Adaptations as translations and re - creations

-      Gender and Indian film adaptations of the Bard’s plays

-      Cultural constructs in the Indian film adaptations

-      Post colonialism and film adaptations

Abstracts of 400-500 words on these or any other themes consonant with the subject, accompanied 5 keywords, a title and a short bio of 150-250 words for 6000 word essays should be mailed as a word file to pulugurthanishi@gmail.com by 20th October 2022.