ARIJIT BANERJEE

Arijit Banerjee was a Research Assistant at the Institute of Chinese Studies. His research interests stretch from issues such as the role of art in politics and society, Historiography, Modern Chinese History, Modern South Asian History, Histories of Capitalism and Socialism (India-China), Aesthetic Philosophy, trans-national histories of Political theatre tradition, including  (socialist realist literature and film in India and China) Traditional Chinese Philosophy and Feminist Theatre. He is particularly interested in understanding how theatre and the state (cultural commissioners) were constructing  'revolutionary' bodies that were complicating the past structural mediations of agency, gender, and labor through different concepts such as 'fusion' or (Jiaotong 交融) transforming into a “dialectical unity” (Bian zheng tongyi 辯證統一). He is also interested in exploring how the Chinese socialist playwrights influenced the playwrights' opus in India, which in a way, bolstered/made possible the internationalist imagination of a post-colonial global south in building a transnational network of solidarity among the socialist cultural practitioners.

Arijit recently submitted his Mphil thesis titled, 'Theatre of Forgotten Histories: A History of the Revolutionary Theatre in Post-Independent India; 1960-92', at the School Of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. He is now writing his Master's dissertation at the School of Philosophy, Fudan University. His Master's dissertation reconstructs and traces eminent Philosopher Li Zehou's 'theory of subjectivity-subjectality.' He holds a bachelor’s degree in Comparative Literature from Jadavpur University. Two master’s degrees in Performance Studies and History from the Ambedkar University of Delhi (specializing in Modern Indian History, Critical Theories, and Theatre). He has previously worked as a Research Assistant at the India Habitat Centre, Visual Arts Gallery, and Bihar Museum. He has also worked as a freelance writer, translator and archivist.