The Working Group "(Counter)Public Spheres" is delighted to have Professor Bishnupriya Dutt from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India) as a guest at our upcoming working group session, where she will present her current research on politics and performance in post-colonial India.

The working paper "Theatre for a Counter Populism" and discussion will centre around a core argument in terms of Dutt’s current work on politics and performance, particularly the rise of right-wing populism, in the world and India. The paper asks the question: how can theatre respond to right wing populism? Can it offer a resistance? What form and strategies can theatre deploy? She argues from the position of what the current trend has been rather than a conjecture or hypothesis or, as Chantal Mouffe argues, for a left populism.

Bishnupriya Dutt is Professor of Theatre and Performance Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University (New Delhi, India). Her area of research includes politics and theatre, feminist readings of Indian theatre and contemporary performance practices, and popular culture. Her recent publications include Maya Rao and Indian Feminist Theatre. She is currently the President of the International Federation for Theatre Research and is Distinguished Fellow at the EXC 2020 Temporal Communities.