[Anthropgrad] Work-in-Progress Seminar - 26 June - Dibyesh Anand

[Sharon Komidar]

The Research School of Humanities presents,
 Work-in-Progress Seminar Series 

1- 2.30 pm, Friday 26 June, Theatrette, Old Canberra House

PERSONAL BIGOTRY AND POLITICS OF PUBLIC VIOLENCE IN INDIA 

A/Professor Dibyesh Anand, 

Associate Professor, University of Westminster 

Freilich Foundation Visiting Fellow.

 

Nationalism as an ideology is commonly understood as the love of the
national Self. Nationalism is therefore narcissistic. I theorise
nationalism's narcissism as based on fear, desire and disgust. Fear of
not only the 'strong' Other, but also a fear of the 'weak' self. Calls
for nationalist mobilizations are directed toward purging the
nationalist Self of its weakness, its doubts, its anxieties, even its
pacifism. Political violence committed in the name of extremist
nationalism therefore is a product of the will to expel the weak Self
and counter the strong Other. This public violence scavenges upon and
further fosters private prejudices. In the lecture, I will provide an
ethnography of porno-nationalistic Hindu extremism in India. 

 

Dr Dibyesh Anand is an Associate Professor in International Relations at
the University of Westminster in London. His publications are in the
areas of Global Politics, Tibet, China, Hindu nationalism, and Security.
He is the author of Geopolitical Exotica: Tibet in Western Imagination
(University of Minnesota Press, 2007), Tibet: A Victim of Geopolitics
(Routledge, 2008), and Hindu Nationalism in India and the Politics of
Fear (Palgrave Macmillan, Forthcoming). He is currently working on a
book on Chinese public diplomacy tentatively titled China's Tibet, a
research project on Sino-Indian border regions, and majority-minority
relations in India and China. 

 

Convenors: Ken Taylor and Stephen Foster
For general enquiries please contact: 
Phone: 6125 2434
Email: administration.rsh at anu.edu.au 
Web: http://rsh.anu.edu.au/
All Welcome