Former Fellow

Ravi Vasudevan

Director, Sarai, Centre for the Study of Developing Societies; Module Coordinator: “Media and the Constitution of the Political”, International Centre for Advanced Studies: Metamophoses of the Political (ICAS:MP)

Research project Title:
Populism, Authoritarianism, and Trust: exploring Indian film and media history

Research abstract
My research project with ConTrust draws on Indian film and media history to explore significant political configurations that enabled the development of trust in authoritarian politics. The first instance relates to the role of governmental cinema in the development of the career of Indira Gandhi between 1967 and 1977. The second reflects on configurations of political power and necropolitics in the cinematic imagination of Banaras, and the political ascendancy of Narendra Modi.

Events:
ConTrust Speaker Series
July 12, 2023, 18.15
Lecture: Mythopolitics and Melodrama in the Forging of Populist Power in Contemporary India
For further information: Click here…

  • Biografische Angaben

    Ravi Vasudevan is a film and media historian. With Ravi Sundaram, Vasudevan directs Sarai, the media research program of the Centre for the Study of Developing Societies. He co-founded Bioscope: South Asian Screen Studies (2010-), and is a coordinator of the media module of the International Centre for Advanced Studies: Metamorphoses of the Political (ICAS:MP). He is currently working on non-fiction film infrastructures, the film archives and questions of historiography; film and the history of publicity; film, media and mythopolitics; post-cinema media artefacts and political imaginaries.
  • Publikationen

    2023 Unexpected, Contingent, Accidental: Cinema in the Contemporary Digital Archive, in Stefanie Schulte Strathaus and Vinzenz Hediger edited Accidental Archivism: Shaping Cinema’s Futures with Remnants of the Past, Meson Press 2022 Infrastructures of Political Address: the Film and Media Archive, in Ranjani Mazumdar and Neepa  Majumdar edited, Companion to Indian Cinema, London, Blackwell 2021 “In India’s Life and Part of It”: Film and Visual Publicity at Burmah Shell, 1920s-1950s, in Marina Dahlquist and Patrick Vondereau ed, Petrocinema: Sponsored Film and the Oil Industry, London, Bloomsbury 2021 Configurations of Partition: the Indian Newsreel Archive, in Ravi Vasudevan ed. Media and the Constitution of the Political: South Asia and Beyond, Delhi, Sage/Spectrum-International Centre for Advanced Studies: Metamorphoses of the Political

News from the research center

Event
02.06.2026 | Frankfurt

Forensic Truth Regimes

Movie, Panel Discussion

The event explores how documentary film and aesthetic investigations can reopen unresolved questions of justice and accountability by revisiting the 1992 killing of two Romanian Roma men at the German-Polish border and examining the counter-forensic potential of visual media to critique legal violence and truth regimes. It is part of the series “Visual Truth Regimes,” organized by Laliv Melamed (Goethe University Frankfurt, TFM), Felix Trautmann (HBK Braunschweig / Institute for Social Research), and Franziska Wildt (Institute for Social Research).

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Event
02.06.2026 | Brussels

Zusammenhalt, Vertrauen und Demokratie in Europa

Panel Discussion, Lecture

Vertrauen, Zusammenhalt, Demokratie – drei große Begriff, die in Europa derzeit allgegenwärtig sind. Doch wie belastbar sind sie eigentlich und was beschreiben sie? Was genau meinen wir eigentlich, wenn wir von politischem Vertrauen und gesellschaftlichem Zusammenhalt sprechen? Und braucht es – wie häufig behauptet – ein gewisses Maß an sozialer oder kultureller Homogenität, damit Vertrauen wachsen und Zusammenhalt entstehen kann? Diesen Fragen widmen wir uns in der aktuellen Ausgabe der Crisis Talks – auf dem Podium und im Gespräch mit unseren Gästen.

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Event
22.06.2026 | Frankfurt am Main

Rechtsextremismus und Polizei - Erscheinungsformen, Umgangsweisen, Perspektiven

Panel Discussion

Die Diskussion knüpft an den Sammelband „Rechtsextremismus als Herausforderung für Polizei und Gesellschaft“ an, der aktuelle Perspektiven aus Wissenschaft, Praxis und Zivilgesellschaft zusammenführt.

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News
18.05.2026

Videopodcast-Reihe „Our Planet, Our Health“ gestartet

Mit „Our Planet, Our Health“ startet eine neue Videopodcast-Reihe zu Fragen globaler Gesundheitsgerechtigkeit. Die Reihe, gehostet von Dr. Romina Rekers, ist eine Initiative des Global Health Justice Postdoctoral Programme (GHJ), gefördert von der Höppschen Stiftung.

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Publication
12.05.2026 | Online article

Disinhibited Informalization: Talk Radio, Bro Podcasts and the Aesthetics of Populism

This essay by Johannes Völz is a revised and updated translation of “Enthemmte Informalisierung: Talk Radio, Bro-Podcasts und die Ästhetik des Populismus,” WestEnd: Neue Zeitschrift für Sozialforschung 22.2 (2025): 3–24. It is published here as part of the b2o Review’s “Stop the Right” dossier.

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Event
25./26.06.2026 | Frankfurt

Shifting Regimes, Changing Orders

Conference

Conference as part of WDC2026 in collaboration with Deutsche Gesellschaft für Designtheorie und -forschung (DGTF), Kunstgewerbemuseum/Design Campus SKD and Design and Democracy

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Publication
22.04.2026 | Chapter

Körpergeschlecht und Selbstbestimmung

Britz, Gabriele (2026): "Körpergeschlecht und Selbstbestimmung". In. Mangold, Anna Katharina; Völzmann, Berit (Hrsg.): Gerechtigkeit als Thema der Rechtswissenschaft, Nomos, S. 41-48.

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Publication
22.04.2026 | Chapter

Festrede zu Ehren von Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ute Sacksofsky, M.P.A. (Harvard), 4. April 2025

Schmidt, Rebecca Caroline; Forst, Rainer; Günther, Klaus (2026): "Festrede zu Ehren von Prof. Dr. Dr. h.c. Ute Sacksofsky, M.P.A. (Harvard), 4. April 2025". In: Mangold, Anna Katharina; Völzmann, Berit (Hrsg.): Gerechtigkeit als Thema der Rechtswissenschaft, Nomos, S. 13-18.

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