Call for Chapters: Edited collection of essays on Bengali periodicals in the long nineteenth century

The editors, Dr Madhumita Roy and Mr Soumyarup Bhattacharjee, are inviting abstracts for proposed chapters in a collection of essays on Bengali periodicals and the construction(s) of the “bhadrasamaj” in the long nineteenth century.

Colonial Bengal, in the long nineteenth century, witnessed an upsurge of new ideas in various spheres such as religion, learning, and culture, where the diffusion and subsequent appropriation of colonial modernity were sought by the English-educated Bengali intelligentsia. In his seminal work, The Bengal Renaissance: Identity and Creativity from Rammohun Roy to Rabindranath Tagore, Subrata Dasgupta identifies a dominant aspect that informed the thought process of Bengali intellectuals: the ability to critically think and effectively negotiate with both Western and Indian concepts. With the gradual dissemination and critical reception of colonial modernity, the identity of Bengali middle-class intelligentsia or Bhadraloks began to crystallise in due course of time. Parallel to this, Bengali women were also inspired to cross the threshold of their homes and participate in the public sphere. As Krishna Sen observes in her essay, “Lessons in Self-Fashioning: “Bamabodhini Patrika” and the Education of Women in Colonial Bengal”, the newly educated middle-class Bengali women or Bhadramahila were subject to new patriarchal practices due to the resultant urge of the Bhadraloks to find out suitable partners for companionship. Thus, the home and the world no longer remained strictly compartmentalised but emerged as dynamic spaces frequently engaged in dialogic interactions with each other.

Periodicals played a pivotal role in disseminating new ideas in colonial Bengal. As Partha Chatterjee pointed out in “The Disciplines in Colonial Bengal” (1995), the advent of “modernity,” and the concomitant proliferation of scientific knowledge, political theories, philosophical discourses, and socio-economic ideologies were fostered by the space for intellectual dialogues offered by periodicals among the emergent educated middle class. On the one hand, they opened up a space for conversations beyond the confines of academic scholarship and classrooms, often serving as a medium of communication and exchange of ideas, firstly, among scholarly circles established for the pursuit of different disciplines and, secondly, between these scholarly circles and the larger reading public. On the other hand, they played an important role in promoting a culture of “reading” and facilitated the dissemination of debates, discussions, and discourses among the general reading public. These “exchanges” contributed significantly to the formation of reading communities, often with specific interests that, in turn, contributed to the emergence of new periodicals catering to the burgeoning popular demand for a more regular availability of newly published materials. Therefore, in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, we witness the blossoming of magazines, pamphlets, journals, and newsletters addressing various subject matters such as science, medicine, travel, entertainment, sensational crime, and the occult, among others.

This collection invites 500-word abstracts for essays exploring the multifaceted relationship between periodicals and the construction(s) of the Bengali “bhadrasamaj.” We are especially looking forward to contributions that examine how the emergence of such periodicals led to the formation and consolidation of a new reading public and their tastes, preferences, and critical thinking. Concomitantly, this collection would also attempt to look at how these reading communities mediated the popular print culture in the context of magazines and periodicals during this period. We welcome essays that deal with the following issues, but this list is not exhaustive by any means:

Travel, culture and the politics of seeing
The occult and the supernatural
Bhadramahila as the reader and the writer
Science, technology, and modernity
Public health, hygiene, and sanitation
Culinary culture and the kitchen space
The city and beyond
Advertisements, illustrations, and cover design


We request you to submit your abstracts along with brief bio-notes through email to Dr Madhumita Roy (diya6r@gmail.com) and Mr Soumyarup Bhattacharjee (soumyarup.bhattacharjee519@gmail.com) for review on or before 31st March, 2025. The finished chapters will be between 5000-8000 words. The collection will be published by a reputed academic publisher.

IMPORTANT DATES:

Submission of abstracts/chapter proposals: 31 March, 2025

Intimation of acceptance after review: 15 May, 2025

Submission of complete chapters: 30 November, 2025