Hari Ramesh
Assistant Professor of Government
318 High Street, 213860-685-2257
Assistant Professor, Global South Asian Studies
BA Williams CollegeMA Yale University
MPHIL Yale University
PHD Yale University
Hari Ramesh
Hari Ramesh is a political theorist with research and teaching interests in democratic theory, histories and theories of social oppression, the intersections of South Asian, Afro-modern, and American political thought, and the relationship between empirical social science and political theory.
His current book project - tentatively titled Directed Association: Social Oppression, State Action, and the Pursuit of Radical Democracy (under contract with Harvard University Press) - draws insights from John Dewey, B.R. Ambedkar, Brown v. Board of Education, W.E.B. Du Bois, and contemporary democratic theory in order to offer an original account of the compatibility of coercive state action with a radical vision of democracy. Specifically, the book puts forward the idea of directed association - a conceptual and political strategy whereby socially-oppressed groups can utilize the coercive instruments of the state in order to create the conditions for democracy understood not just as a form of government but as 'associated life.'
Hari's peer-reviewed research has appeared in Political Theory, Modern Intellectual History, and History of the Present. His public writing has been published in Boston Review and Dissent. Prior to arriving at Wesleyan, Hari was a College Fellow in Social Studies at Harvard University.
Academic Affiliations
Office Hours
Wednesdays 3-5pm and by appointment
Office hours sign-up: https://calendly.com/hramesh/spring-2023-office-hours
Courses
Fall 2023
CSS 271 - 01
Soph Col: Modern Social Theory
GOVT 395 - 01
Caste, Race, and Democracy
Spring 2024
GOVT 159 - 01
The Moral Basis of Politics
GOVT 339 - 01
Contemporary Political Theory