Arwa Awan

Biography

Arwa’s research interests lie at the intersection of 20th-century anticolonial political theory and the theories and histories of anticapitalist critique. In particular, she is interested in the various ways that capitalist modernity came to be theorized in continental thought and anticolonial theory, and in the intellectual and political fermentation and friction characterizing the encounters between both of these traditions of thinking. 

Her current book project examines how the Marxist concept of alienation was stretched and re-theorized by a strand of anticolonial political thought encompassing figures such as Aimé Césaire, Frantz Fanon, and Ali Shariati. The project offers an intellectual history of the concept of alienation, tracing these thinkers’ brush with the Hegelian, existentialist, and left Catholic philosophical currents in France which were themselves deeply shaped by Marx’s theory of alienation; at the same time, the project seeks to excavate a distinctly political theory of alienation. Beyond this, Arwa is interested in the intellectual histories of decolonization; the theory and political practice of Marxism around the globe; and the concepts of the political, especially in relation to the economic domain.