Nikita Dhawan, born 1972 in Thane/India, studied German Studies, Philosophy und Gender Studies at Mumbai University and Ruhr-University Bochum. She holds the Chair in Political Theory and History of Ideas at the Technical University Dresden. Her research and teaching focuses on global justice, human rights, democracy and decolonization.

Publications (Selection)
2023 | Rescuing the Enlightenment from the Europeans: Critical Theories of Decolonization (forthcoming).
2020 | Postkoloniale Theorie: Eine kritische Einführung. transcript Verlag (co-author, 3rd revised edition UTB)
2019 | Reimagining the State: Theoretical Challenges and Transformative Possibilities. Routledge. (co-editor)
2017 | Difference that makes no Difference. The Non-Performativity of Intersectionality and Diversity. Wagadu. A Journal of Transnational Women's and Gender Studies. Vol. 16. (ed.)
2014 | Decolonizing Enlightenment: Transnational Justice, Human Rights and Democracy in a Postcolonial World. Barbara Budrich Verlag. (ed.)
2007 | Impossible Speech. On the Politics of Silence and Violence. Academia Verlag.

Awards (Selection)
2023 | Gerda-Henkel Visiting Professor, Stanford University
2017 | Käthe Leichter Award, Chamber of Labour Vienna
2007 | Maria-Goeppert-Mayer Guest Professor, Carl-von-Ossietzky University Oldenburg
 
Project description
Dealing with Disappointment: Aesthetic Enlightenment and the Art of Decolonization.
In times of multiple crises, it is imperative to (re)examine the mandate of art. What role can or should art play in the face of increasing social injustices? Can critical artistic practices facilitate transnational justice and democracy and protect and promote human rights? Or should art be inappropriate? Given that art functions within capitalist structures and coloniality, the role of artist:s and art institutions is ambivalent. To find answers to this pressing question, Nikita Dhawan and María do Mar Castro Varela, on the one hand, look at artivism, whose origins lie in the social movements of the 1970s and 1980s in Los Angeles and Berlin. They also explore whether and how aesthetic education can help us imagine a planetary future.