I am a PhD candidate in the department of political science at the University of Connecticut. My interests revolve around the international historical sociology of capitalism and colonialism, particularly in Southeast Asia and Indonesia. I am interested in how world-historical processes shape both the material development of societies and the subjectivities of social agents. In my dissertation work, I frame the development of ‘nationalism and revolution’ in Indonesia as part of a broader process of capitalism’s ‘uneven and combined development’ on a world scale. In particular, I argue that the Indonesian revolution was a ‘passive revolution’ made in conditions of uneven and combined development, and thus counter the prevailing eurocentric consensus that the Indonesian revolution was merely a national revolution that failed to transform Indonesian society.
Recent publications
- Theodra, J. (2022). Development as a human right: Can capitalism deliver? Marxist sociology blog.
- Theodra, J. (2022). Capitalism socialism and the human right to development. International Critical Thought, DOI: 10.1080/21598282.2022.2074513
- Theodra, J. (2021) Wrestling with the devil: a prison memoir, Review of African Political Economy, DOI: 10.1080/03056244.2021.1860344
- Theodra, J. (2020). Review: Only People Make Their Own History, Samir Amin. Theory and Struggle. 121.
- Theodra, J. (2019). Audacity and Acuity: The Life and Work of Samir Amin. International Critical Thought. 9(4). 617-633.
- Theodra, J. (2019). Indonesia 1965, Half a Century Later. Monthly Review. 71(7). 55-57
- Theodra, J. (2021). Engels at 200: The Torch Still Burns. Fight Racism Fight Imperialism.
- Theodra, J. (2020, August 20). Books: Message from one crisis generation to another. Morning Star. Retrieved from https://morningstaronline.co.uk/article/c/message-one-crisis-generation-another
Conference presentations
- Northeastern Political Science Association, ‘Nationalism, revolution and the ‘international’: Towards a non-eurocentric theory of revolution through the Indonesian case’, forthcoming: November 2023
- Historical Materialism Annual Conference, ‘Nationalism, revolution and the ‘international’: Towards a non-eurocentric theory of revolution through the Indonesian case’, forthcoming: November 2023
- International of Workers and People’s Symposium, ‘Imperialism, eurocentrism and historical materialism: Towards an Aminian articulation of the problematic of capitalist modernity’, forthcoming: September 2023.
Teaching
- Asian Philosophies
- Introduction to International Relations
- Introduction to Political Theory
Justin Theodra 