R. BRAIDOTTI, J. BUTLER, D. DELLA PORTA, R. LAUDANI, A. MBEMBE, N. MENON - SOCIAL MOVEMENTS IN AND AGAINST THE UNIVERSITY

JUDITH BUTLER is Maxine Elliot Professor in the Department of Comparative Literature and the Program in Critical Theory at the University of California, Berkeley. She served as Founding Director of the Program in Critical Theory. She is the author of Subjects of Desire: Hegelian Reflections in Twentieth-Century France (1987); Gender Trouble: Feminism and the Subversion of Identity (1990); Bodies That Matter: On the Discursive Limits of “Sex” (1993); The Psychic Life of Power: Theories in Subjection (1997); Excitable Speech (1997); Antigone’s Claim: Kinship Between Life and Death (2000); Precarious Life: Powers of Violence and Mourning (2004); Undoing Gender (2004); Who Sings the Nation-State?: Language, Politics, Belonging (with Gayatri Spivak, 2008); Frames of War: When Is Life Grievable? (2009); Is Critique Secular? (co-written with Talal Asad, Wendy Brown, and Saba Mahmood, 2009); and Sois Mon Corps (with Catherine Malabou, 2011). Her most recent books include: Parting Ways: Jewishness and the Critique of Zionism (2012); Dispossessions: The Performative in the Political (with Athena Athanasiou, 2013); Senses of the Subject (2015); and Notes Toward a Performative Theory of Assembly (2015). Butler is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Andrew W. Mellon Award for Distinguished Academic Achievement in the Humanities (2009-13). With Penelope Deutscher, she of co-directs the International Consortium of Critical Theory Programs.

DONATELLA DELLA PORTA is Professor of Political Science, Dean of the Institute for Humanities and the Social Sciences and Director of the Ph.D. program in Political Science and Sociology at the Scuola Normale Superiore in Florence, where she also leads the Center on Social Movement Studies (Cosmos). Among the main topics of her research are: social movements, political violence, terrorism, corruption, the police and protest policing. She has directed a major ERC project, “Mobilizing for Democracy,” on civil society participation in democratization processes in Europe, the Middle East, Asia and Latin America. In 2011, she was the recipient of the Mattei Dogan Prize for distinguished achievements in the field of political sociology. She is Honorary Doctor of the universities of Lausanne, Bucharest and Goteborg. She is the author of 85 books, 130 journal articles and 127 contributions in edited volumes. Among her very recent publications are: Late Neoliberalism and its Discontents (Palgrave, 2017); Movement Parties in Times of Austerity (Polity Press, 2017); Where did the Revolution go? (Cambridge University Press, 2016); Social Movements in Times of Austerity (Polity Press, 2015); Methodological practices in social movement research (Oxford University Press, 2014); Spreading Protest (with Alice Mattoni, ECPR Press, 2014,); Participatory Democracy in Southern Europe (with Joan Font and Yves Sintomer, Rowman and Littlefield, 2014); Mobilizing for Democracy (Oxford University Press, 2014); Can Democracy be Saved? (Polity Press, 2013); Clandestine Political Violence (with D. Snow, B. Klandermans and D. McAdam, eds., Cambridge University Press, 2013); Blackwell Encyclopedia on Social and Political Movements (Blackwell, 2013); Mobilizing on the Extreme Right (with M. Caiani and C. Wagemann, Oxford University Press, 2012); Meeting Democracy (ed. with D. Rucht, Cambridge University Press, 2012); The Hidden Order of Corruption (with A. Vannucci, Ashgate, 2012).

ACHILLE MBEMBE is Research Professor in History and Politics at the Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research (WISER) at University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa. He is the author of many books, including On the Postcolony (2001), Politiques de l’inimitie (2016)  and Critique of Black Reason (2017). His work has been translated in many languages. He is also a member of the American Academy of Arts and Science.

NIVEDITA MENON is Professor in the Centre for Comparative Politics and Political Theory in the School of International Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She is a noted feminist, author, translator, and activist. She has written acclaimed books, including Seeing like a Feminist (Penguin India and Zubaan Books, 2012) and Recovering Subversion: Feminist Politics Beyond the Law (Permanent Black and University of Illinois Press, 2004). She is co-author, with Aditya Nigam, of Power and Contestation: India Since 1989 (University of Chicago Press, 2007). She is one of the founders of the collective independent leftwing blog Kafila, now in its tenth year, and writes regularly in kafila.online as well as in mainstream media, on contemporary issues. Menon has been involved in a wide range of political and social movements.