Dr. Nael Bhanji is an Associate Professor at Trent University's Department of Gender & Social Justice. As a critical race and trans studies theorist, his research draws upon psychoanalysis and affect theory in order to explore articulations of necropolitics, racialization, and counter-terrorism within an increasingly globalized trans movement.
He is particularly invested in tracing the affective circulation of expendability, decay, and death in public imaginaries. Nael was the 2018-2019 Visiting Scholar in Sexuality Studies at York University and is currently a fellow at the University of Toronto's Mark S. Bonham Center for Sexual Diversity Studies. His work appears in Capacious: Journal for Emerging Affect Inquiry, Transgender Migrations: The Bodies, Borders, and Politics of Transition, The Transgender Studies Reader 2, Trans Studies Quarterly 4.1, Canadian Ethnic Studies, Trans Lives in a Global(izing) World, The Equity Myth: Racialization and Indigeneity at Canadian Universities and The SAGE Handbook of Queer Studies.
Research Interests
Race and Racialization; Necropolitics; Biopolitics; Trans theory; Affect; Emotion; Psychoanalysis; Queer theory; Masculinities; Memory and memorialization; Diaspora; Transnationalism; Political economies of violence; Surveillance; Social Justice