Dr Sayandeb Chowdhury, Senior Assistant Professor, Literature, SIAS has co-authored a chapter with Dr Rajendran Narayanan, Azim Premji University, in Daniel Noemi Voionmaa edited World Cup! History, Politics, and Art of the Beautiful Game (Vernon Press, 2025). Bringing together studies of footballing history in the subcontinent, planetary sociology of fandom, literary and cinematic texts, and anecdotal and experiential observations, the chapter provocatively conceives the idea of ‘fanship’, an imagined citizenship that fans of a footballing minion seek of a footballing powerhouse during the carnivalesque heterotopia of the football World Cup, and what that means in a country incrementally in the stranglehold of ultra-jingoism, cricketing and otherwise.
