Anita Chari

Profile picture of Anita Chari
Associate Professor
Clark Honors College, Political Science
Phone: 541-346-4752
Office: 928 PLC
Research Interests: Political Theory, Critical Theory, Frankfurt School, Marxism, Contemplative Studies, Somatics and Politics
Office Hours: Tuesdays 3-4 pm in person drop in office hours PLC 928, Tuesday 4-5 pm zoom, reserve a time at https://calendly.com/anitachari/officehours.

Statement

Anita Chari is Associate Professor of Political Science at the University of Oregon, and a political theorist, somatic practitioner, and writer. Her research focuses on the Frankfurt School, Western Marxism, and the relationship between Critical Theory, contemporary art, and embodied practices. Her recently published book, A User's Manual to Claire Fontaine (Lenz Press, 2024) https://www.lenz.press/products/a-user-s-manual-to-claire-fontaine, has emerged from a decade-long conversation with the feminist conceptual artist, whose work provides the theme and title of the 2024 Venice Biennial, Foreigners Everywhere. Her interdisciplinary scholarly research explores the political significance of embodiment practices for our times. Chari's first book, A Political Economy of the Senses: Neoliberalism, Reification, Critique (Columbia University Press, 2015), explores the concept of reification in the work of Karl Marx, Georg Lukács, Theodor Adorno and the second generation of the Frankfurt School. Her research on embodied practices and political theory has appeared in venues including Contemporanea: A Glossary of the XXI Century (MIT Press, forthcoming, 2024), Bodies in Politics: Explorations in Somaesthetics and Somapower (Brill, forthcoming, 2024), Dispositif: A Cartography (MIT Press, 2023), Theory and Event, New Political Science, Philosophy and Social Criticism, Contemporary Political Theory, and Somatic Voices in Performance Research and Beyond (Routledge, 2020). Her art criticism and experimental writing has appeared in venues including: Flash Art, Claire Fontaine: Newsfloor (Walter König, 2020), The Hysterical Material (University of Chicago Press, 2017), Twentieth Century Hustlers (Cleveland Museum of Art, 2020), May Revue, Something Other than Life Death (Catalyst, 2018), Critical Bastards, and Bailliwik. She is co-founder of Embodying Your Curriculum™, an organization that supports academics, educators, and social justice leaders to bring embodiment practices into higher education. You can contact her at anitac@uoregon.edu.