For the 2019 Social Theory Centre's Annual Distinguished Speaker Series event, you are warmly invited to hear Professor Jasbir Puar (Rutgers University, USA) in conversation with Dr. Rahul Rao (SOAS, South Asia Institute).

Professor Jasbir Puar's body of work constitutes a distinct oeuvre that has developed groundbreaking insights for critical race, gender, queer & disability theory. This work offers, for our historical conjuncture and geopolitical time, a vocabulary that allows for an astute analysis regarding the violent and debilitating effects of biopolitical (neo)liberalism. This vocabulary simultaneously illuminates forms of as well as calls to activism & resistance. While Professor Puar has self-identified her work as 'accountability to the field of American studies', it is imperative to recognize the influence and importance of Puar's work in a number of disciplines including Sociology, Philosophy, Law, History, Politics & International Relations.

Come join us for an evening of conversation around the profound and razor sharp theoretical and political insights emerging from this body of work - the subject of the conversation between Professor Puar and Dr. Rahul Rao. The conversation will be followed by Q & A with the audience.

This event is free. However, we request that you register for catering purposes. The event will be followed by a wine reception with light refreshments.

Biographies

Jasbir K. Puar is Professor and Graduate Director of Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, where she has been a faculty member since 2000. Her most recent book is The Right to Maim: Debility, Capacity, Disability (2017) published with Duke University Press in the series ANIMA: Critical Race Studies Otherwise that she co-edits with Mel Chen. Puar is the author of award-winning Terrorist Assemblages: Homonationalism in Queer Times (2007), which has been translated into Spanish and French and re-issued in an expanded version for its 10th anniversary (December 2017). Currently Professor Puar is completing her third book, a collection of essays on duration, pace, mobility, and acceleration in Palestine titled Slow Life: Settler Colonialism in Five Parts.

Puar received the 2013 Modern Languages Association Gay Lesbian/Queer Caucus Michael Lynch Award for her years of scholar-activist work. In January 2013 she was honored with the Robert Sutherland Visitorship at Queens University, awarded to “a notable individual with expertise in race relations.” In 2017 Puar’s article “Bodies with New Organs: Becoming Trans, Becoming Disabled” (Social Text #124) was awarded the Modern Language Association’s Gay Lesbian/Queer Caucus’s Crompton-Noll Prize for Best LGBTQ Studies Article.

Rahul Rao has research interests in international relations theory, the international relations of South Asia, comparative political thought, and gender and sexuality. He is currently working on a book on queer postcolonial temporality. His first book Third World Protest: Between Home and the World (Oxford University Press, 2010) explored the relationship between cosmopolitanism and nationalism in postcolonial protest. He was previously a Term Fellow in Politics at University College, Oxford. He has a law degree from the National Law School of India University, and read for a doctorate in international relations at Balliol College, Oxford, where he was a Rhodes Scholar.

Please register here for:

The Conversation with Jasbir Puar and Rahul Rao.

May 15: 5 pm - 7:30 pm

Please register here for:

the Masterclass with Jasbir Puar

May 15: 10:30 am - 2 pm

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These events have been co-sponsored by

The Institute of Advanced Study

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Contributing sponsors include:

The Centre for Critical Legal Studies,

Law

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