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.
The proposal for this volume has already been peer reviewed once by a publisher of international acclaim. Based on the recommendations of the same, we are presently, ONLY AND EXCLUSIVELY looking for papers on the following topics/films:
• Anurag Kashyap’s OTT productions (ex. Sacred Games, Nishaanchi, Bad Cop and other minor ventures. We are looking for atleast one dedicated contribution on Sacred Games)
• “Paanch” (2003)
• “Kennedy” (2023)
• Gender Politics vis-à-vis formation of women characters/ feminine agency in his films. (excluding Gulaal and Gangs of Wasseypur, for which we already have enough contributions)
• Global reception of Anurag Kashyap’s filmography through film festival circuits and international circulation.
PLEASE NOTE THAT WE ALREADY HAVE ENOUGH PAPERS ON GULAAL AND GANGS OF WASSEYPUR, LIKEWISE WE WOULD NOT BE ABLE TO ENTERNTAIN ANY NEW CONTRIBUTIONS ON THEM.
We have as of yet garnered interest from an academic publisher on international repute. This cfp is thus in keeping with the initial peer review responses received on the proposal. 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 30th October, 2026. Subsequent decision would be communicated on a rolling basis. Prospective contributors will be expected to submit their full
chapters of (approximately) 6,000-7000 words including endnotes (referenced in
Chicago style) by 15th November , 2026.
Please note that while we encourage contributions from all social cultural dispensations, we are ideally looking for contributors who presently have completed and received their doctoral degrees.

Devapriya Sanyal is Assistant Professor in School of Communication and media Studies, St.
Joseph’s University, Bangalore where she teaches film studies, and 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).Her latest books on post-independence Hindi film directors
titled Bollywood and the First Decade of Independence: Seven Directors in Search of a
Nation was published by Routledge UK in July 2025 and about the woman film director
Aparna Sen titled Aparna Sen: A Life in Cinema was published by Rupa in August 2025. Her
writings have appeared in national and international journals. She has degrees in English and
Film Studies from Lady Brabourne College and JNU.

Dr. Rajarshi Roy serves as an Assistant Professor at the Department of English, Vivekananda Satavarshiki Mahavidyalaya, Jhargram. He has been awarded a doctorate for his thesis titled ‘The ‘faithful’ Republic and its representations in Indian literary and public discourses: A Study of the changing natures of secularism in post-Independence India’, which is prersently under a monograph contract with Springer Nature. He is also one of the editors of the “Green Tagore” series under contract to be published from Peter Lang. He has in the past, been a recipient of the UGC-RUSA 2.0 fellowship to translate Prasanta Kumar Paul’s ‘Rabijibani’ to English from Bangla. He also serves as an Editor (Consulting), Persons with Special Needs and Rehabilitation Management: Issues in Cultural Diversity and Wellbeing, Jadavpur University.