Since August 25, 2023, Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha, Professor of Literary Studies in the Department of English at Kazi Nazrul University and Institute of Language Studies and Research (ILSR), Kolkata is a Visiting Professor at PRIF as well as a Fellow of the Leibniz Research Network “Value of the Past”. During his one-month stay until September 25, 2023, he will conduct research on political violence in India on his Leibniz Fellowship project “Fraternal Enmity: Violence as Popular Sovereignty and India’s Battle with the Past”.
In his project, Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha investigates the meaning of legitimations of political violence, for example in the sense of a normative popular will or as a legitimate manifestation of popular sovereignty. In doing so, he draws on a close reading of recent acts of political violence in India. The scope of this project comes within the domain of historical conflicts animated by cultures of remembrance and related to the colonial past as well as decolonization.
Anindya Sekhar Purakayastha is one of the founding members of the Postcolonial Studies Association of the Global South (PSAGS), co-editor of the journal Kairos: A Journal of Critical Symposium and author and editor of numerous articles, monographs and edited volumes. He recently published the volume “Violence in South Asia: Contemporary Perspectives” (Routledge, 2019) on the topic of violence in South Asia.