Keynote Presentation

Dr. Nimmi Gowrinathan

Nimmi Gowrinathan is an activist, writer, and scholar and founder of the Politics of Sexual Violence Initiative, a global project to explore the political impact of gender-based violence. She is also the Founder and Publisher of Adi Magazine, a literary journal to re-humanize policy, and the creator of the Female Fighter Series at Guernica Magazine. Her book, Radicalizing Her (Beacon Press 2021), examines the politics of the female fighter. Her political essays, which have appeared in Harper’s Magazine, Freeman’s Journal, McSweeney’s Quarterly, Guernica Magazine, and Foreign Affairs, among others have been described as “searing in a search for answers.”

Opening Address abstract

A hyper-masculine frame looms over the body politic. Virulent misogyny is in the bone marrow of nation-states that seek supremacy. Read from the body, state violence is always gendered. Gender based violence is always political. Truths that the body holds to be self-evident. Pullling from the narratives of fighters in Sri Lanka, Palestine, Kashmir and others, this lecture re-imagines what safety looks like for those under constant threat of state violence, re-politicizing gender-based violence through the frame of self-determination.

Chair's Recommended Readings

This is a non-exhaustive list of work by Dr. Gowrinathan that this year’s GSRC Chairs recommend to the OISE community. We also recommend checking out new issues released by Adi Magazine.

Gowrinathan, N. (2024). “Objects of Discipline: Finding the Fighter” In Adi Magazine, Issue 18: “Omens: Spirits and Spectres.”
Gowrinathan, N. (2020). Radicalizing Her: Why Women Choose Violence. Beacon Press.
Gowrinathan, N. (2018). “On the Myth of Stockholm Syndrome and Women Guerrilla Fighters” In LitHub.