Kristin Plys
Biographic Data
| ID | 290576 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Kristin Plys |
| GIVEN NAMES | Kristin |
| FAMILY NAME | Plys |
| SIGNATURE | PLYS K |
| AFFILIATIONS | University of Toronto |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-1866-7770 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 10 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2016 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
The Indian Coffee House Workers Movement, 1936–1977: From Colonial Firm to Workers Cooperative
Nadakkal Parameswaran Pillai, a worker at the Indian Coffee House (ICH) in Trichur, later recalled that the cooperative found its place in history through its “martyrdom” at the hands of Sanjay Gandhi during India’s Emergency (1975–1977). Before the state demolished its Connaught Place location in 1976, that flagship café in New Delhi became the largest and most visible expression of workers’ confidence. From selling coffee on the street, they co…
Antifascist Algiers from La Résistance to the Black Panthers: A Comparative History of Theory-Making in Algiers Café Culture, 1942 and 1969
In this article, I compare how the café culture of Algiers provided a space for antifascist Communist Jewish organizers such as José Aboulker, for example, to oppose Vichy colonialism in 1942 with the role of Hôtel St. George (since renamed Hotel El-Djazaïr) in fostering the development of theory and praxis within the Black Panther Party during the 1969 Pan-African Cultural Festival. The Hôtel St. George café was the setting for the now famous de…
The Gramsci-Mao debate on antifascism during India’s emergency (1975–1977) and beyond: Towards an anti-imperialist critique
This article reconsiders the Gramsci-Mao debate on antifascism through the lens of India’s Emergency (1975–1977), arguing that Gramsci’s theory of passive revolution and Subaltern Studies unique reformulation of passive revolution inadequately theorize fascism as implicated in structures of imperialism. In contrast, Mao’s theory of fascism, and how the Naxalite Movement seized upon it foregrounds the centrality of mass mobilization, anti-imperial…
The Cold War from the Global South: Maoism and the Future of Liberalism
In the mid-20th century, The Cold War structured possibilities for politics across the Global South. These strategies were articulated through three competing means to realize the justice and equality promised by newly won independence from colonialism. Global South states could choose from among the following three options, which had many overlaps and intersections: alignment with the United States, alignment with the Soviet Union, and non-align…
Theories of capitalism and coloniality in world systems analysis, the Dar es Salaam School of history and the New Indian Labour History
How might we productively synthesize Marxist and postcolonial thought in order to bring questions of race and class, and imperialism and capitalism, into the same frame of analysis? In this short comment, I show how the Dar es Salam School of anti-colonial history, along with the New Indian Labour History inspired by the Dar School, can creatively bring together theoretical frameworks of different epistemes for a productive synthesis
Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part II: Autonomous Workers Movements and the Café Culture in Italy & Tunisia, 1922–1945
The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 1980s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 1940s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in betw…
Guillemette Crouzet, Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism
Colonialism and Modern Social Theory
Political Work on a Cultural Front: The Postcolonial Avant-garde of Lahore’s Pak Tea House during the Zia Military Dictatorship (1977–88)
After South Asia won its flag-independence from Britain, Pakistani artists pursued two distinct strategies for the shared goal of producing art in the service of national liberation. A group of communist artists sought to innovate new cultural forms to serve movements of the left, while others endeavoured to recover the pre-colonial Islamicate culture of South Asia to serve state-building efforts. During the Zia coup in 1977, protest poetry and a…
Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part I: Fascism in the Longue Durée
The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 80s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 40s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in between …
Nostalgia for Futures Past: The 1970s Global Left in Naeem Mohaiemen’s Afsan’s Long Day (The Young Man Was, Part II )
This article investigates the intellectual and political legacies of Maoist and other left Third Worldist thought of the 1970s through an analysis of Naeem Mohaiemen’s 2020 film, Afsan’s Long Day, The Young Man Was. The film presents a narrative of the history of the 1970s anti-imperialist left, and in Brechtian fashion, compels the viewer to take an emotionally distanced assessment of the left’s chaotic trajectory through a unique engagement wit…
Capitalism and its Uncertain Future
For decades, Charles Lemert has been the leading voice in social theory. In Capitalism and its Uncertain Future he teams up with one of the most creative emerging social theorists, Kristin Plys, to examine how social theory imagines capitalism. This engaging and innovative book provides new perspectives on well known theorists from Adam Smith, and Frantz Fanon, to Gilles Deleuze, while also introducing readers to lesser known theorists such as Lu…
Theorizing Capitalist Imperialism for an Anti-Imperialist Praxis: Towards a Rodneyan World-Systems Analysis
How does one craft an explicitly left theory of anti-imperialism that would animate an anti-imperialist praxis? World-systems analysis has a long history of engagement with theories of anti-imperialism from an explicitly Leninist perspective. For the founding fathers of World-Systems Analysis—Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Samir Amin, and Andre Gunder Frank—anti-imperialism was an early central concern. Each of the four founders of world…
Brewing Resistance: Indian Coffee House and the Emergency in Postcolonial India
In 1947, decolonization promised a better life for India's peasants, workers, students, Dalits, and religious minorities. By the 1970s, however, this promise had not yet been realized. Various groups fought for the social justice but in response, Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi suspended the constitution, and with it, civil liberties. The hope of decolonization that had turned to disillusion in the postcolonial period quickly descended into a night…
Time and World-History
A concept of time is implicit in any theory that endeavors to make sense of human existence. History, particularly world-history or macro-history, is multi-dimensional, relative, and infinite. Comprehending the infinite has long been an epistemological puzzle for both mathematics and philosophy, but one that has never been explicitly contextualized for historical sociological research. Because the infinite needs to be measured by a concept that i…
The Poetry of Resistance: Poetry as Solidarity in Postcolonial Anti-Authoritarian Movements in Islamicate South Asia
During India's Emergency, anti-state poetry of a decidedly amateurish quality proliferated. Anti-Emergency poetry did little to bring about the restoration of democracy, nor could it have reasonably been mistaken for great art. So what was the purpose of writing resistance poetry if it was not meant to directly influence politics nor to be great art? Poetry as politics has a long history in the Islamicate world, dating back to the pre-Islamic Ara…
Violence as a Tactic of Social Protest in Postcolonial India: From the Railway Workers’ Strike to the Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy, 1974-1976
In March 1974, trade union leader and Chairman of the Socialist Party of India, George Fernandes, formed a new independent trade union of railway workers and then led a massive nation-wide strike lasting about a month. Two years later-March 1976-Fernandes was arrested as the principal accused in the Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy Case, a plot to bomb strategic targets in New Delhi in resistance to Indira Gandhi's authoritarian rule. How did George Fe…
Political deliberation and democratic reversal in India: Indian coffee house during the emergency (1975-77) and the third world 'totalitarian moment
Worker self-management in the Third World, 1952–1979
Worker self-management has proliferated at key historical moments, worldwide, since 1917. In the wake of decolonization and the national liberation movements of the mid-20th century, unprecedented levels were attained across the globe. By examining the major cases of worker self-management that began in 1952–1979 in the periphery and semi-periphery, I highlight the varied historical trajectories leading up to state suppression or absorption of wo…
The Poetry of Resistance: Poetry as Solidarity in Postcolonial Anti-Authoritarian Movements in Islamicate South Asia
During India's Emergency, anti-state poetry of a decidedly amateurish quality proliferated. Anti-Emergency poetry did little to bring about the restoration of democracy, nor could it have reasonably been mistaken for great art. So what was the purpose of writing resistance poetry if it was not meant to directly influence politics nor to be great art? Poetry as politics has a long history in the Islamicate world, dating back to the pre-Islamic Ara…
Theorizing Capitalist Imperialism for an Anti-Imperialist Praxis: Towards a Rodneyan World-Systems Analysis
How does one craft an explicitly left theory of anti-imperialism that would animate an anti-imperialist praxis? World-systems analysis has a long history of engagement with theories of anti-imperialism from an explicitly Leninist perspective. For the founding fathers of World-Systems Analysis—Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Samir Amin, and Andre Gunder Frank—anti-imperialism was an early central concern. Each of the four founders of world…
Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part II: Autonomous Workers Movements and the Café Culture in Italy & Tunisia, 1922–1945
The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 1980s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 1940s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in betw…
Colonialism and Modern Social Theory
Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part I: Fascism in the Longue Durée
The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 80s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 40s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in between …
Political deliberation and democratic reversal in India: Indian coffee house during the emergency (1975-77) and the third world 'totalitarian moment
Worker self-management in the Third World, 1952–1979
Worker self-management has proliferated at key historical moments, worldwide, since 1917. In the wake of decolonization and the national liberation movements of the mid-20th century, unprecedented levels were attained across the globe. By examining the major cases of worker self-management that began in 1952–1979 in the periphery and semi-periphery, I highlight the varied historical trajectories leading up to state suppression or absorption of wo…
Worker self-management in the Third World, 1952–1979
Worker self-management has proliferated at key historical moments, worldwide, since 1917. In the wake of decolonization and the national liberation movements of the mid-20th century, unprecedented levels were attained across the globe. By examining the major cases of worker self-management that began in 1952–1979 in the periphery and semi-periphery, I highlight the varied historical trajectories leading up to state suppression or absorption of wo…
Political deliberation and democratic reversal in India: Indian coffee house during the emergency (1975-77) and the third world 'totalitarian moment
Violence as a Tactic of Social Protest in Postcolonial India: From the Railway Workers’ Strike to the Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy, 1974-1976
In March 1974, trade union leader and Chairman of the Socialist Party of India, George Fernandes, formed a new independent trade union of railway workers and then led a massive nation-wide strike lasting about a month. Two years later-March 1976-Fernandes was arrested as the principal accused in the Baroda Dynamite Conspiracy Case, a plot to bomb strategic targets in New Delhi in resistance to Indira Gandhi's authoritarian rule. How did George Fe…
Brewing Resistance: Indian Coffee House and the Emergency in Postcolonial India
In 1947, decolonization promised a better life for India's peasants, workers, students, Dalits, and religious minorities. By the 1970s, however, this promise had not yet been realized. Various groups fought for the social justice but in response, Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi suspended the constitution, and with it, civil liberties. The hope of decolonization that had turned to disillusion in the postcolonial period quickly descended into a night…
Time and World-History
A concept of time is implicit in any theory that endeavors to make sense of human existence. History, particularly world-history or macro-history, is multi-dimensional, relative, and infinite. Comprehending the infinite has long been an epistemological puzzle for both mathematics and philosophy, but one that has never been explicitly contextualized for historical sociological research. Because the infinite needs to be measured by a concept that i…
The Poetry of Resistance: Poetry as Solidarity in Postcolonial Anti-Authoritarian Movements in Islamicate South Asia
During India's Emergency, anti-state poetry of a decidedly amateurish quality proliferated. Anti-Emergency poetry did little to bring about the restoration of democracy, nor could it have reasonably been mistaken for great art. So what was the purpose of writing resistance poetry if it was not meant to directly influence politics nor to be great art? Poetry as politics has a long history in the Islamicate world, dating back to the pre-Islamic Ara…
Capitalism and its Uncertain Future
For decades, Charles Lemert has been the leading voice in social theory. In Capitalism and its Uncertain Future he teams up with one of the most creative emerging social theorists, Kristin Plys, to examine how social theory imagines capitalism. This engaging and innovative book provides new perspectives on well known theorists from Adam Smith, and Frantz Fanon, to Gilles Deleuze, while also introducing readers to lesser known theorists such as Lu…
Theorizing Capitalist Imperialism for an Anti-Imperialist Praxis: Towards a Rodneyan World-Systems Analysis
How does one craft an explicitly left theory of anti-imperialism that would animate an anti-imperialist praxis? World-systems analysis has a long history of engagement with theories of anti-imperialism from an explicitly Leninist perspective. For the founding fathers of World-Systems Analysis—Immanuel Wallerstein, Giovanni Arrighi, Samir Amin, and Andre Gunder Frank—anti-imperialism was an early central concern. Each of the four founders of world…
Political Work on a Cultural Front: The Postcolonial Avant-garde of Lahore’s Pak Tea House during the Zia Military Dictatorship (1977–88)
After South Asia won its flag-independence from Britain, Pakistani artists pursued two distinct strategies for the shared goal of producing art in the service of national liberation. A group of communist artists sought to innovate new cultural forms to serve movements of the left, while others endeavoured to recover the pre-colonial Islamicate culture of South Asia to serve state-building efforts. During the Zia coup in 1977, protest poetry and a…
Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part I: Fascism in the Longue Durée
The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 80s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 40s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in between …
Nostalgia for Futures Past: The 1970s Global Left in Naeem Mohaiemen’s Afsan’s Long Day (The Young Man Was, Part II )
This article investigates the intellectual and political legacies of Maoist and other left Third Worldist thought of the 1970s through an analysis of Naeem Mohaiemen’s 2020 film, Afsan’s Long Day, The Young Man Was. The film presents a narrative of the history of the 1970s anti-imperialist left, and in Brechtian fashion, compels the viewer to take an emotionally distanced assessment of the left’s chaotic trajectory through a unique engagement wit…
Theories of Antifascism in the Interwar Mediterranean Part II: Autonomous Workers Movements and the Café Culture in Italy & Tunisia, 1922–1945
The current proliferation of authoritarianism across both core and periphery is one political articulation of the current crisis of the capitalist world-system. Authoritarianism similarly proliferated in previous periods of crisis, in the 1970s and 1980s in the peripheries, and in the 1930s and 1940s in the core. In Part I of this essay, I detail how world-systems analysts have long been attuned to describing and analyzing chaotic moments in betw…
Guillemette Crouzet, Inventing the Middle East: Britain and the Persian Gulf in the Age of Global Imperialism
Colonialism and Modern Social Theory
Theories of capitalism and coloniality in world systems analysis, the Dar es Salaam School of history and the New Indian Labour History
How might we productively synthesize Marxist and postcolonial thought in order to bring questions of race and class, and imperialism and capitalism, into the same frame of analysis? In this short comment, I show how the Dar es Salam School of anti-colonial history, along with the New Indian Labour History inspired by the Dar School, can creatively bring together theoretical frameworks of different epistemes for a productive synthesis
Antifascist Algiers from La Résistance to the Black Panthers: A Comparative History of Theory-Making in Algiers Café Culture, 1942 and 1969
In this article, I compare how the café culture of Algiers provided a space for antifascist Communist Jewish organizers such as José Aboulker, for example, to oppose Vichy colonialism in 1942 with the role of Hôtel St. George (since renamed Hotel El-Djazaïr) in fostering the development of theory and praxis within the Black Panther Party during the 1969 Pan-African Cultural Festival. The Hôtel St. George café was the setting for the now famous de…
The Gramsci-Mao debate on antifascism during India’s emergency (1975–1977) and beyond: Towards an anti-imperialist critique
This article reconsiders the Gramsci-Mao debate on antifascism through the lens of India’s Emergency (1975–1977), arguing that Gramsci’s theory of passive revolution and Subaltern Studies unique reformulation of passive revolution inadequately theorize fascism as implicated in structures of imperialism. In contrast, Mao’s theory of fascism, and how the Naxalite Movement seized upon it foregrounds the centrality of mass mobilization, anti-imperial…
The Cold War from the Global South: Maoism and the Future of Liberalism
In the mid-20th century, The Cold War structured possibilities for politics across the Global South. These strategies were articulated through three competing means to realize the justice and equality promised by newly won independence from colonialism. Global South states could choose from among the following three options, which had many overlaps and intersections: alignment with the United States, alignment with the Soviet Union, and non-align…
The Indian Coffee House Workers Movement, 1936–1977: From Colonial Firm to Workers Cooperative
Nadakkal Parameswaran Pillai, a worker at the Indian Coffee House (ICH) in Trichur, later recalled that the cooperative found its place in history through its “martyrdom” at the hands of Sanjay Gandhi during India’s Emergency (1975–1977). Before the state demolished its Connaught Place location in 1976, that flagship café in New Delhi became the largest and most visible expression of workers’ confidence. From selling coffee on the street, they co…
Law (15 works) · Politics (15 works) · Political science (14 works) · Sociology (13 works) · Capitalism (8 works) · Law (8 works) · Economics (7 works) · History (7 works) · Political economy (7 works) · Communism, Protests, Social Movements (6 works)