Archana Kaku

Background

Professor Kaku's research focuses on the interactions between the body, violence, and power. Her work examines the ways in which accounting for the materiality of the body changes the terrain of politics, making it possible to ask and answer new kinds of questions. She is working on a book manuscript that analyzes four cases (detention center conditions, interrogatory torture, self-immolation, and suicide bombing) to ask: what does an act of violence mean? By closely reading these cases, the project shows how the destruction of the body is imbricated in both the consolidation of state domination and in opening possibilities for resistance. Professor Kaku teaches classes in Political Theory focused on bringing critical lenses to contemporary political life and conflicts. She received her PhD from the University of Pennsylvania, and previously served as a Consortium for Faculty Diversity Postdoctoral Fellow at Muhlenberg College. You can find her work in Theory & Event, Polity, and Contemporary Political Theory.