CFP Gothic in Bengal: Literature and Culture (6/10/2025)

 

Call for Papers for an Edited Volume - Gothic in Bengal: Literature and Culture

deadline for submissions: 

June 10, 2025

full name / name of organization: 

DoctorsBhattacharya

contact email: 

bookchapters89@gmail.com

source: https://call-for-papers.sas.upenn.edu/cfp/2025/05/20/call-for-papers-for-an-edited-volume-gothic-in-bengal-literature-and-culture

Call for Papers for an Edited Volume

Gothic in Bengal: Literature and Culture

The Gothic has long been recognised as a potent mode of cultural expression, historically rooted in the anxieties, fears, and moral uncertainties of Western Europe. From its 18th-century origins in British literature, the Gothic evolved to encompass a wide range of tropes—decay, the supernatural, the haunted past, and the psychological uncanny—becoming a tool for interrogating power, identity, and transgression. While much scholarship has focused on the European and American Gothic, there is a growing need to investigate its global resonances, particularly its entanglements with postcolonial histories and vernacular traditions.

This call invites scholarly contributions for a volume/issue exploring the Gothic in Bengal, with a focus on literature, visual culture, folklore, performance, and material history. Bengal—both as a region and as a cultural-linguistic space—offers a fertile ground for rethinking the Gothic through its own unique colonial, political, and social experiences. From the spectral presences in the stories of Rabindranath Tagore and Bibhutibhushan Bandyopadhyay to the eerie films of Satyajit Ray and the ghostly tales of bhuter golpo, Bengal's cultural production abounds with Gothic elements that merit deeper theoretical engagement.

The proposed collection seeks to ask:

• How has the Gothic been appropriated, transformed, or hybridized in Bengali literary and cultural forms?
• What are the socio-political and historical conditions—colonialism, nationalism, Partition, urbanisation, environmental decay—that inform Gothic aesthetics in Bengal?
• In what ways do local belief systems, folklore, and vernacular traditions inflect the Gothic with regionally specific meanings?
• Can we speak of a "Bengali Gothic" or "vernacular Gothic" that challenges or reorients Anglophone theoretical paradigms?

We welcome submissions on themes and topics including, but not limited to, the following:

• The supernatural and the uncanny in Bengali short stories and novels
• Colonial hauntings and postcolonial trauma
• Gothic spaces: ruins, forests, old mansions, and urban decay
• Ghosts, spirits, and possession in Bengali folklore and religious practices
• Gender, sexuality, and repression in Bengali Gothic narratives
• The Gothic in Bengali cinema and television (e.g., Satyajit Ray, Rituparno Ghosh, contemporary horror)
• Partition, memory, and spectrality
• Translation and transnational flows of the Gothic
• Eco-Gothic and environmental anxieties in Bengal
• Children’s literature and the Gothic imagination

We welcome original essays, case studies, archival explorations, and theoretical interventions that engage critically with these and related questions. Contributions may draw from both Anglophone and vernacular sources, and interdisciplinary approaches are encouraged.

Submission Guidelines:

• Abstract: 250-300 words along with 4-5 keywords outlining the proposed paper
• Bionote: 100 words (name, affiliation, contact details, and brief research interests)
• Deadline for Abstracts: 10th June, 2025.
• Notification of Acceptance: 12th June, 2025.
• Full Paper Submission: 5th July, 2025.

The full paper must not exceed 2,500-4,000 words.
Please send abstracts and bios to bookchapters89@gmail.com.

For further enquiries, please feel free to reach out at (+91) 7980150229.

Last updated May 28, 2025