Graduate Speaker Series

ABOUT THE TALK

This talk analyzes the logics of state violence in contemporary HIndu nationalist INdia, an INdia that has seen a significant erosion of democracy under the contemporary BJP government in the last decade. Using the 'Clean India" campaign as a case study, this talk calls attention to the logics of governmentality of Hindu nationalism and discusses some of the ways in which state violence is performed by vigilantism.  This raises new questions about the shifting nature of sovereign power today.  The role of media and the digital sphere in vigilante violence will also be addressed. 

ABOUT THE SPEAKER

Dr. Raka Shome is a professor and Harron Family Endowed Chair in the Department of Communication at Villanova University. 

She writes on postcolonial cultures, transnational feminism, nationalism and gender. Her current research interests are in Contemporary Hindu Nationalism; Asian Modernities, Transnational relations of India, and the cultures of the Global South.

Shome has won several research awards from NCA including the Douglas Ehninger Distinguished Rhetorical Scholar, Charles Woolbert Award—given to an article that has stood the test of time—Distinguished Scholar from Rhetoric and Communication Theory Division of NCA, as well as from the Critical and Cultural Studies Division. She is the inaugural recipient of the Global Communication Scholarship award from NCA and the IDEA (Inclusion, Diversity, Equity and Access) award for scholarship also from NCA.  In 2021 she was inducted as a Distinguished Scholar by the National Communication Association, and in that same year, was also inducted as a Fellow of  the International Communication Association.  

This talk is based on her book, Cleansing the Nation that is forthcoming in 2025 from Duke University Press.