Nalini Persram
Associate Professor
Interdisciplinary Social Science (ISS)
YCAR Fellow; CERLAC Fellow; On Sabbatical through June 2023
Office: 719 Ross Building South
Ext: 22980
Email: persramn@yorku.ca
Primary website: LA&PS Researcher Profile
Degrees
PhD 1997. International Politics, University of Wales AberystwythMA 1992. International Relations, University of East Anglia
BA 1990. Political Science, University of Victoria
BA 1986. Music, University of Regina
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesResearch Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Entrepreneurial innovation and cultural creation in Asia's largest slum, Dharavi, in Mumbai, India. Lessons for the "First" World/Global North.
Description:Documentary Film
Start Date:
- Month: Jan Year: 2017
Collaborator Institution: Derek Jarman Lab
Collaborator Role: Cinematography, editing, production, post-production, dissemination, knowledge mobilization
Funders:
YCAR
-
Summary:
Starvation, War and Cultural Genocide
Start Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2017
Collaborator: Abdulqadir Al-Emad
Collaborator Role: Researcher
Funders:
YCAR
-
Summary:
This transdisciplinary project draws on: the social sciences, the humanities, neuroscience and areas that focus on certain forms of aesthetic expression, concentration and movement, perception, somatics and kinesthetics (eg. dance and yoga) and their collective relation to concept formation.
Description:Research questions are: How can we efficiently acquire and comprehend difficult ideas, theories and concepts? How does movement and its perception create neurological conditions facilitating cognitive and intellectual processing when ultimately directed at the cognitive (ie, taught)? Ie, How does the phenomenology of movement inform the way the intellect handles concepts? How can knowledge acquisition and aesthetic/kinesthetic physicality be viewed as not a mutually exclusive relation but as one that allows for the opening of mental processes and neural pathways that readily prepare the mind for intellectual creativity and understanding?
Start Date:
- Month: Jul Year: 2015
End Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2018
Funders:
York University
*Postcolonialism and Political Theory, edited by Nalini Persram in the Global Encounters: Studies in Comparative Political Theory Series (editor Fred Dallmayr) (Lexington Books, hb May 2007, 372 pp; pb Jan. 2008, 322 pp)
*Sovereignty and Subjectivity, Jenny Edkins, Nalini Persram, Véronique Pin-Fat (eds) in the “Critical Perspectives in World Politics” Series (editor R.B.J. Walker) (Lynne Rienner, 1999), 197 pages
“Rousseau, Pacha Mama, and the Femini: How Nature Can Revive Politics” in Jane Anna Gordon and Neil Roberts (eds), Creolizing Rousseau in the Creolizing the Canon Series (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2014)
*“Pushing Politics,” Postcolonialism and Political Theory, Nalini Persram (ed.) (Lexington Books, May 2007), pp. xi-xlii
*“The Clash and 'Civilisation': Representation, Rhetoric and Popular Legitimacy,” co-authored with Francesco Cavatorta and Shiera El-Malik, in Lise Garon (ed.), Et puis vint le 11 septembre... Remise en question de l'hypothèse du choc des civilisations (Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2003), pp. 153-175
*“Coda: Sovereignty, Subjectivity, Strategy,” Sovereignty and Subjectivity, J. Edkins, N. Persram, V. Pin-Fat (eds) (Lynne Rienner, 1999), 12 pages
“wartimeviolence: pulping fictions of the subaltern,” in Vivienne Jabri and Eleanor O'Gorman (eds), Women, Culture and International Relations (Lynne Rienner, 1999), pp. 61-90
“In my father's house are many mansions: the nation and postcolonial desire,” Heidi Safia Mirza (ed.), Black British Feminism: A Reader (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 205-215
N. Persram, Introduction, Special Issue "Post/Coloniality and Subjectivity" edited by N. Persram, Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology: 3(3), 2013
“Spatial and Temporal Dislocations of Theory, Subjectivity and Post()Reason in the Geopolitics of Subaltern Studies,” Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 11(1), 2011
*Entry on "Subaltern" for Encyclopedia of Political Theory (SAGE, 2010) edited by Mark Bevir
*“The Importance of Being Cultural: Nationalist Thought and Jagan’s Colonial World,” Small Axe: A (Caribbean) Journal of Criticism Special Issue: Guyana, The Present against the Past, #15 March 2004: 82-105
*“Guerrillas, Games and Governmentality,” Small Axe: A (Caribbean) Journal of Criticism “Politics/Nation” Special Issue #10, September 2001: 21-40.
*“Politicizing the Féminine, Globalizing the Feminist,” Alternatives 19(3), 1994: 275-313.
“The Attack on Iraq from a Postcolonial Perspective,” feature article in European Political Science War Symposium, no. 3.1, Autumn 2003: 13-18 http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/publications/eps/onlineissues/autumn2003/feature/persram.htm
*“Dis-ing Orientalism: Creolism and Subjectivity in Caribbean Nationalist Discourse,” Latin American Institute Working Group on Caribbean Studies, The UCLA Mellon Faculty Seminar on Caribbean Cultural History, University of California LA, 14 May 2010
*Symposium on the International Politics of Social Order, organized by Colleen Bell, sponsored by the Centre of Criminology and the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Toronto, 27 November 2009
**“Orientalism, Creolism, Subjectivity and Modernity,” presented to the Caribbean Philosophical Association conference, University of Miami, 12-15 August, 2009
**“The Subaltern,” presented at the Association of Cultural Studies “Crossroads” conference, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, 3-7 July 2008
**“The Moment of Arrival: Forbes Burnham’s Postcolonial State,” presented at the Caribbean Studies Association conference, May 28 - June 1, 2007, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
*“Conversations on Caribbean Transnational and Diasporic Feminisms,” University of Toronto, April 2006
- organizers: Kamala Kempadoo (York University) and Alissa Trotz (University of Toronto)
*“Feminism and Cultural Studies,” Centre for Gender and Development, University of the West Indies, April 2005
**“Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the fairest methodology of all?” co-authored with Dr Marianne Franklin (University of Amsterdam), presented (by Dr Franklin) at the panel Why Are Measurements More Important To You Than They Are to Me? Leading Methods Within and Beyond The Academy, International Studies Association conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, March 2005
**“The Eye of Terror” presented at the Caribbean Studies Association conference, St Kitts, May/June 2004
**“Orientalism and the Caribbean” presented at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association conference, Belize, 26-31 May 2003
*“What the female terrorist tells us that the male terrorist cannot: gender, violence and the private domain” presented to the Feminist Political Perspectives on Globalisation Conference, organized by the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre (WERRC), University College Dublin, 28 March 2003
*“British Guiana: Cultural Difference in the Colonial World” presented to the Centre for International Studies, Dublin City University, 23 October 2002
**“Caribbean Feminisms and the Nation State" presented at the Caribbean Feminisms Inaugural Workshop: Recentring Caribbean Feminism, The Centre for Gender and Development Studies, The Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, 17-18 June, 2002
**“Cultural Rupture, Political Theory and Colonial Difference” presented at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association conference, The Bahamas, 27 May – 1 June, 2002
*“How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Terrorism” presented to the Department of Politics, University College Dublin, 22 November 2002
**“Contingency, Crisis and Continuity in Contemporary Ireland” presented at the Interpretive Political Social Analysis Weekend Workshop at Allihies, West Cork, 30 June 2001
**“Governmentality in Guyana” presented at the “Rethinking Caribbean Culture” conference, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, 5-9 June, 2001
*“Nationalist Thought and the Caribbean World,” Seminar Series, Department of Political Science, TCD, November 1999
**“Colonialism, Immigration and European Identity,” presented at the International Studies Association annual conference, Minneapolis, USA, 1998
*“Colonialism, Immigration and National Identity: History and Counter-history in the new Europe,” presented at the London Centre for International Relations, University of Kent, October 1998
*“Of Mimicry, Mockery, Silence and the Imagination,” Visiting Lecturer presentation at the Department of Anthropology, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland (February 1997
**“Subaltern Speak: Thinking Through Politics,” presented at the Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism conference, Lancaster University, July 1997
*“Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity in Guyana,” Visiting Lecturer presentation at the Department of Sociology, University College Cork, Ireland (November 1996)
**“Caribbean Cultural Expression and the Calypso Economy,” presented at the Culture and Colonialism Conference, Galway (22-25 June 1995)
Approach to Teaching
My objectives are to teach students different ways of understanding, constituting and articulating knowledge; to investigate how it is politicized, normalized, marginalized, and conflated with ideology; and to show how it serves or undermines self, society and the systems that mediate them. The transferral to students of critical reading, writing, and analytical skills within various thematic or inter/disciplinary contexts is an organic part of my approach. I also seek to cultivate a passion for inquiry. Priorities include fostering an interest in our many worlds, and considering the ways we are and could be instrumental to the planet's and humanity's existence and future; and achieving the above under conditions of mutual learning, respect and challenge.
Degrees
PhD 1997. International Politics, University of Wales AberystwythMA 1992. International Relations, University of East Anglia
BA 1990. Political Science, University of Victoria
BA 1986. Music, University of Regina
Appointments
Faculty of Graduate StudiesResearch Interests
Current Research Projects
-
Summary:
Entrepreneurial innovation and cultural creation in Asia's largest slum, Dharavi, in Mumbai, India. Lessons for the "First" World/Global North.
Description:Documentary Film
Project Type: Self-FundedRole: Director, Writer, Knowledge Mobilizer
Start Date:
- Month: Jan Year: 2017
Collaborator Institution: Derek Jarman Lab
Collaborator Role: Cinematography, editing, production, post-production, dissemination, knowledge mobilization
Funders:
YCAR
-
Summary:
Starvation, War and Cultural Genocide
Project Type: Self-FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Start Date:
- Month: Mar Year: 2017
Collaborator: Abdulqadir Al-Emad
Collaborator Role: Researcher
Funders:
YCAR
-
Summary:
This transdisciplinary project draws on: the social sciences, the humanities, neuroscience and areas that focus on certain forms of aesthetic expression, concentration and movement, perception, somatics and kinesthetics (eg. dance and yoga) and their collective relation to concept formation.
Description:Research questions are: How can we efficiently acquire and comprehend difficult ideas, theories and concepts? How does movement and its perception create neurological conditions facilitating cognitive and intellectual processing when ultimately directed at the cognitive (ie, taught)? Ie, How does the phenomenology of movement inform the way the intellect handles concepts? How can knowledge acquisition and aesthetic/kinesthetic physicality be viewed as not a mutually exclusive relation but as one that allows for the opening of mental processes and neural pathways that readily prepare the mind for intellectual creativity and understanding?
Project Type: FundedRole: Principal Investigator
Start Date:
- Month: Jul Year: 2015
End Date:
- Month: Jun Year: 2018
Funders:
York University
All Publications
“Rousseau, Pacha Mama, and the Femini: How Nature Can Revive Politics” in Jane Anna Gordon and Neil Roberts (eds), Creolizing Rousseau in the Creolizing the Canon Series (London: Rowman and Littlefield International, 2014)
*“Pushing Politics,” Postcolonialism and Political Theory, Nalini Persram (ed.) (Lexington Books, May 2007), pp. xi-xlii
*“The Clash and 'Civilisation': Representation, Rhetoric and Popular Legitimacy,” co-authored with Francesco Cavatorta and Shiera El-Malik, in Lise Garon (ed.), Et puis vint le 11 septembre... Remise en question de l'hypothèse du choc des civilisations (Les Presses de l’Université Laval, 2003), pp. 153-175
*“Coda: Sovereignty, Subjectivity, Strategy,” Sovereignty and Subjectivity, J. Edkins, N. Persram, V. Pin-Fat (eds) (Lynne Rienner, 1999), 12 pages
“wartimeviolence: pulping fictions of the subaltern,” in Vivienne Jabri and Eleanor O'Gorman (eds), Women, Culture and International Relations (Lynne Rienner, 1999), pp. 61-90
“In my father's house are many mansions: the nation and postcolonial desire,” Heidi Safia Mirza (ed.), Black British Feminism: A Reader (London: Routledge, 1997), pp. 205-215
*Postcolonialism and Political Theory, edited by Nalini Persram in the Global Encounters: Studies in Comparative Political Theory Series (editor Fred Dallmayr) (Lexington Books, hb May 2007, 372 pp; pb Jan. 2008, 322 pp)
*Sovereignty and Subjectivity, Jenny Edkins, Nalini Persram, Véronique Pin-Fat (eds) in the “Critical Perspectives in World Politics” Series (editor R.B.J. Walker) (Lynne Rienner, 1999), 197 pages
N. Persram, Introduction, Special Issue "Post/Coloniality and Subjectivity" edited by N. Persram, Journal of Theoretical and Philosophical Psychology: 3(3), 2013
“Spatial and Temporal Dislocations of Theory, Subjectivity and Post()Reason in the Geopolitics of Subaltern Studies,” Cultural Studies Critical Methodologies 11(1), 2011
*Entry on "Subaltern" for Encyclopedia of Political Theory (SAGE, 2010) edited by Mark Bevir
*“The Importance of Being Cultural: Nationalist Thought and Jagan’s Colonial World,” Small Axe: A (Caribbean) Journal of Criticism Special Issue: Guyana, The Present against the Past, #15 March 2004: 82-105
*“Guerrillas, Games and Governmentality,” Small Axe: A (Caribbean) Journal of Criticism “Politics/Nation” Special Issue #10, September 2001: 21-40.
*“Politicizing the Féminine, Globalizing the Feminist,” Alternatives 19(3), 1994: 275-313.
“The Attack on Iraq from a Postcolonial Perspective,” feature article in European Political Science War Symposium, no. 3.1, Autumn 2003: 13-18 http://www.essex.ac.uk/ecpr/publications/eps/onlineissues/autumn2003/feature/persram.htm
*“Dis-ing Orientalism: Creolism and Subjectivity in Caribbean Nationalist Discourse,” Latin American Institute Working Group on Caribbean Studies, The UCLA Mellon Faculty Seminar on Caribbean Cultural History, University of California LA, 14 May 2010
*Symposium on the International Politics of Social Order, organized by Colleen Bell, sponsored by the Centre of Criminology and the Trudeau Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies, University of Toronto, 27 November 2009
**“Orientalism, Creolism, Subjectivity and Modernity,” presented to the Caribbean Philosophical Association conference, University of Miami, 12-15 August, 2009
**“The Subaltern,” presented at the Association of Cultural Studies “Crossroads” conference, University of the West Indies, Kingston, Jamaica, 3-7 July 2008
**“The Moment of Arrival: Forbes Burnham’s Postcolonial State,” presented at the Caribbean Studies Association conference, May 28 - June 1, 2007, Salvador da Bahia, Brazil
*“Conversations on Caribbean Transnational and Diasporic Feminisms,” University of Toronto, April 2006
- organizers: Kamala Kempadoo (York University) and Alissa Trotz (University of Toronto)
*“Feminism and Cultural Studies,” Centre for Gender and Development, University of the West Indies, April 2005
**“Mirror, mirror on the wall, which is the fairest methodology of all?” co-authored with Dr Marianne Franklin (University of Amsterdam), presented (by Dr Franklin) at the panel Why Are Measurements More Important To You Than They Are to Me? Leading Methods Within and Beyond The Academy, International Studies Association conference, Honolulu, Hawaii, March 2005
**“The Eye of Terror” presented at the Caribbean Studies Association conference, St Kitts, May/June 2004
**“Orientalism and the Caribbean” presented at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association conference, Belize, 26-31 May 2003
*“What the female terrorist tells us that the male terrorist cannot: gender, violence and the private domain” presented to the Feminist Political Perspectives on Globalisation Conference, organized by the Women's Education, Research and Resource Centre (WERRC), University College Dublin, 28 March 2003
*“British Guiana: Cultural Difference in the Colonial World” presented to the Centre for International Studies, Dublin City University, 23 October 2002
**“Caribbean Feminisms and the Nation State" presented at the Caribbean Feminisms Inaugural Workshop: Recentring Caribbean Feminism, The Centre for Gender and Development Studies, The Faculty of Law, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill Campus, Barbados, 17-18 June, 2002
**“Cultural Rupture, Political Theory and Colonial Difference” presented at the annual meeting of the Caribbean Studies Association conference, The Bahamas, 27 May – 1 June, 2002
*“How New York Stole the Idea of Modern Terrorism” presented to the Department of Politics, University College Dublin, 22 November 2002
**“Contingency, Crisis and Continuity in Contemporary Ireland” presented at the Interpretive Political Social Analysis Weekend Workshop at Allihies, West Cork, 30 June 2001
**“Governmentality in Guyana” presented at the “Rethinking Caribbean Culture” conference, University of the West Indies, Cave Hill, Barbados, 5-9 June, 2001
*“Nationalist Thought and the Caribbean World,” Seminar Series, Department of Political Science, TCD, November 1999
**“Colonialism, Immigration and European Identity,” presented at the International Studies Association annual conference, Minneapolis, USA, 1998
*“Colonialism, Immigration and National Identity: History and Counter-history in the new Europe,” presented at the London Centre for International Relations, University of Kent, October 1998
*“Of Mimicry, Mockery, Silence and the Imagination,” Visiting Lecturer presentation at the Department of Anthropology, St. Patrick's College, Maynooth, Ireland (February 1997
**“Subaltern Speak: Thinking Through Politics,” presented at the Transformations: Thinking Through Feminism conference, Lancaster University, July 1997
*“Nationalism and Postcolonial Identity in Guyana,” Visiting Lecturer presentation at the Department of Sociology, University College Cork, Ireland (November 1996)
**“Caribbean Cultural Expression and the Calypso Economy,” presented at the Culture and Colonialism Conference, Galway (22-25 June 1995)
Approach to Teaching
My objectives are to teach students different ways of understanding, constituting and articulating knowledge; to investigate how it is politicized, normalized, marginalized, and conflated with ideology; and to show how it serves or undermines self, society and the systems that mediate them. The transferral to students of critical reading, writing, and analytical skills within various thematic or inter/disciplinary contexts is an organic part of my approach. I also seek to cultivate a passion for inquiry. Priorities include fostering an interest in our many worlds, and considering the ways we are and could be instrumental to the planet's and humanity's existence and future; and achieving the above under conditions of mutual learning, respect and challenge.
