Swaroopa Lahiri
Lecturer
Brief Introduction
I received my BA in Political Science from Bogazici University, Istanbul in 2005, and my PhD in Political Science from the University of Massachusetts Amherst in 2012. Before joining NUS, I worked at Scripps College as a visiting assistant professor in the Department of Politics and International Relations. I came to NUS in 2013 to begin a postdoctoral fellowship and work on my book manuscript, “Governing Piety: Islam, Empire and Moderation in Late Modernity”. In this project, I explore the ways in which transnational discourses on Islam after 9/11 implicate local forms of Islamist activism in contemporary Turkey.
Research Interests
Democracy, civil society, and piety politics in the Middle East; Islam and gender activism in Turkey; contemporary Muslim political thought; comparative political theory; ethnography and interpretive methods; critical theory and postcolonial thought.
Teaching Areas
I have taught several courses in comparative politics, political theory, Middle East politics, and women's politics. In the broader world of CP, I have taught Introduction to Comparative Politics, Middle East Politics, Women and Politics, Gender Politics in the Middle East, State and Society, and Citizenship and Politics of Belonging. In political theory, I have taught or am currently teaching Contemporary Political Theory, Islamic Political Thought and Movements, Orientalism and Femininity, and Comparative Political Theory.
Publications
Journal Articles
"The Social Life of Academic Discourse: Reflections on the Analysis of Piety Politics," International Journal of Middle East Studies 49 (2017): 395-415.
"Islamist Texts in Practice: Commemorating Qutb in Turkey before and after the Arab Spring," The Muslim World 105, no. 4 (2015): 540-560.
Book Chapters
“The Onto-Politics of Moderation: Studying Islamist Politics and Democracy in the Middle East” in Tugrul Keskin (ed.) Neo-Orientalism, American Hegemony and Academia after September 11 (Brill, forthcoming).