Today, Bollywood is not merely an industry of Indian films representing the national cinema but also a global cultural phenomenon. From the singsong dance sequences on YouTube to its widespread circulation on Netflix, Amazon Prime, and regional streaming platforms, Bollywood redefines South Asian identities and how they are consumed, contested, and celebrated globally. Moreover, the intertwining of questions on cultural appropriation, culturalized representation, caste, gender, and diasporic negotiations emerges with renewed urgency and visibility.

This CFP invites scholars, critics, artists, and practitioners to interrogate the global politics of Bollywood’s circulation in the age of streaming media, transnational fandoms, and cultural commodification. Interdisciplinary approaches that engage with cinema studies, media studies, postcolonial studies, cultural anthropology, musicology, gender and sexuality studies, and diaspora studies are welcome.

Submissions are welcome from any discipline, including but not limited to:

1. Cultural Appropriation and Hybridity

• Aesthetics of Borrowing and Remixing 
• Power, Privilege, and Ownership

2. Streaming Media and Distribution

• Platform Capitalism and Algorithmic Visibility 
• OTT Markets, Access, and Inequality

3. Politics of Representation

• Stereotypes, Erasure, and Misrecognition 
• Authenticity, Voice, and Agency 

4. Diasporic Negotiations

• Home, Belonging, and Identity Formation 
• Cross-Border Cultural Production 

5. Transnational Fandoms

• Affect, Community, and Participatory Cultures 
• Circulation of Memes, Trends, and Iconography 

6. Nationalism vs. Globalism

• Cinematic Nation-Building and Soft Power 
• Global Flows, Resistance, and Counter-Narratives 

7. Music, Dance, and Performance

• Choreographies of Modernity 
• Sonic Politics and Affective Resonance 

8. Industrial Shifts

• Labour, Technology, and Changing Production Cultures 
• Market Transformations and Genre Evolution 

9. Queer & Feminist Interventions

• Subversive Aesthetics and Counter-Cinema 
• Gender, Sexuality, and Intersectional Politics 

10. Critical Reception and Pedagogy

• Teaching Media in the Global Classroom
• Reviews, Criticism, and Audience Response 

Submission Details

Abstract: ~500 words (not exceeding 600 words), outlining the proposed chapter and its central argument

Bio of Author(s): max. 150 words

Abstract Deadline: 30 December 2025

Notification of Acceptance: 30 January 2026

Full Chapter Submission: 02 April 2026 (5,000–7,000 words)

Style: US English, Chicago Manual of Style, with consistent citations

Contributions from early-career scholars, independent researchers, practitioners, and voices from the South Asian diaspora are especially encouraged. Selected authors will be invited to submit full chapters following acceptance of their abstracts.

About the Editor:

Tanima Kumari, a literary scholar with research interests in gender studies, African American women’s poetry, film studies, Indian writing in English, and postcolonial studies, has published widely in reputed national and international journals. She has presented her work at international forums, including the World Theatre Process Conference in Baku (2018) and an international conference at St. Anne’s College, University of Oxford (2020), supported by the Ministry of Culture and the ICSSR, respectively. She is an assistant professor in the Department of English at Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Darbhanga, India.

Contact: Please send proposals or inquiries to volume editor Tanima Kumari at tani1805@gmail.com. Include “Global Bollywood” in the email subject line.