Rakesh Sengupta
Rakesh Sengupta’s research and teaching focuses on film history, media archaeology, critical AI, creative labour, global media cultures, South Asian cinemas and postcolonial studies.
Rakesh’s current book project, Genres of the Human: Politics of Scripting from Page to Prompt, offers a grounded and expanded media archaeology of scripting as a media practice with layered histories, technical conditions and political stakes, tracing a continuum from precolonial scribal traditions to generative AI in India. Combining archival research, interview-based fieldwork and media theory, the book examines figures such as the scribe, reader, amateur, expert, lyricist and worker to show how scripting operates as a recursive site of inscription and contestation, where political struggles over language, religion, class, caste, gender and coloniality are continually negotiated.
Rakesh’s parallel research and second book project examines creative work, platform capitalism and generative AI in India and beyond. Rakesh’s article in BioScope was awarded the Best Journal Article by Screenwriting Research Network and received High Commendation for Screen’s Annette Kuhn Debut Essay Prize. His research has also been published in Theory, Culture & Society and Literature/Film Quarterly, among other journals and edited volumes. His public writing and interviews on South Asian media and culture have appeared in The Conversation, The Juggernaut, The Wire, Dawn and Indian Cultural Forum.
Rakesh has previously taught at the University of Amsterdam and holds a PhD from SOAS, University of London.
Journal Articles and Book Chapters
Towards a Decolonial Media Archaeology: The Absent Archive of Screenwriting History and the Obsolete Munshi. Theory, Culture & Society, 38(1), 3-26, 2021
Stardom. Special Issue on Keywords from South Asian Cinema. Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, 2021 (Co-authored with Rachel Dwyer)
Scripting for the Masses: Notes on the Political Economy of Bollywood. In C. Batty, S. Taylor. (Eds.), Handbook of Script Development. London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2021
Negotiating Empathy and Excess: Pyaasa as a Melodrama of Authorship. Literature/ Film Quarterly, 47(3), 2019
Writing from the Margins of Media: Screenwriting Practice and Discourse During the First Indian Talkies. Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies, 9(2), 117-136, 2018
Other Writing
The Dogwhistle of ‘Hinduphobia’. Dawn, 2021
Bollywood Is a Major Target for Right Wing Groups Looking for Signs of 'Hinduphobia'. The Wire, 2021
Saadat Hasan died at 42. Manto lives on: The enduring relevance of a screened author. Indian Cultural Forum, 2018
