SHAH, Nishant
SHAH, Nishant
Associate Professor
Bachelors in Arts (English, Computer Science)
St. Xavier’s College, Ahmedabad, Gujarat University, India
Masters in Women’s Studies
Pune University, India
Masters in English Literature (Postcolonial theories specialization)
Pune University, India
Ph.D. Cultural Studies (Digital Cultures specialization)
Centre for the Study of Culture and Society
Manipal University, India
Teaching and Research Interests:
- Digital Cultures
- AI Ethics
- Misnformation Cycles
- Gender Justice
- Tech4Change
- Critical Media Practice
- Internet & Society
- Digital Infrastructure
- Narrative Change
- Intersectional Pedagogies
- Feminist Care
Appointments:
Academic Appointments
- 2023: Director, Digital Narratives Studio, The Chinese University of Hong Kong
- 2020 – 2022: Director of Research and Outreach, Professor of Aesthetics and Cultures of Technology, ArtEZ University of the Arts, The Netherlands.
- 2020 – Present: Faculty Associate 2020-21, Berkman Klein Centre for Internet & Society, Harvard University, USA.
- 2020 – 2023: Bijzonder Hoogleraar (Professor by Special Appointment), Faculty of Arts, Radboud University, The Netherlands.
- 2016 – 2020: Member of the Executive Board (CvB lid.) / Dean Graduate School, ArtEZ University of the Arts, The Netherlands.
- 2014 – 2018: Professor Culture and Aesthetics of Digital Media, Faculty of Media, Communication, and Cultural Studies, Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Germany.
- 2014 – 2017: Academic Director, Leuphana Digital School, Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Germany.
- 2012 – 2014: International Tandem Partner, Inkubator for Digitisation, Leuphana University, Lueneburg, Germany.
- 2009 – 2014: Co-founder and Director-Research, Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore, India.
Professional Appointments
- 2018 – 2022: Research Mentor, Feminist Internet Research Network, Association of Progressive Communication (APC), Sri Lanka/ UK.
- 2018 – Present: Academic Advisor, Creating Resources for Empowerment in Action (CREA), USA/India.
- 2016 – 2018: Senior Research Fellow, Institute for the Advanced Study of Media Cultures of Computer Simulation (MECS), Leuphana University, Germany.
- 2017 – 2019: Fellow, Centre for Internet & Human Rights, Berlin, Germany.
- 2016: Visiting Summer Fellow, Mudra Institute of Communication (MICA), Ahmedabad, India.
- 2015: Scholar in Residence, Indian Institute of Technology, Ahmedabad, India.
- 2012: Visiting Fellow, Institute of Social Sciences, Erasmus University, The Hague, The Netherlands.
- 2010 – 2011: Asia Foundation Fellow, Centre for Contemporary Cultural Studies, Shanghai University, China.
- 2010 – Present: Digital Strategies Advisor, Khoj Studios / Art Think South Asia, India.
- 2009 – Present Knowledge Partner, Hivos, Social Justice Organisation, The Netherlands.
- 2005- 2006: Visiting Scholar, Sex Studies Centre, National Central University, Chungli, Taiwan.
Network Affiliations
- Radboud Institute for Culture & History,Radboud University, Nijmegen, The Netherlands.
- Digital Asia Hub, Hong Kong/ Singapore.
- Connected Learning Alliance, at the University of California, Irvine, USA.
- Network of Centres for Internet & Society initiated at the Berkman-Klein Centre for Internet and Society, Harvard University, Cambridge, USA.
- Inter Asia Cultural Studies Consortium, Lingnan University, Hong Kong.
- FemTechNet, A global distributed online research network Femtechnet.
- Schloss Solitude Akademia, Stuttgart, Germany.
Advice to students:
The biggest lessons we will learn from each other is how to practice feminist care – How to give not from our surplus, but from our core resources, investing into the wellbeing of someone else.
Publication List:
Monographs
Shah, N. (2023). Formulating fake futures: The tomorrow through the lens of computational networking. ArtEZ Press. Available at https://artezpress.artez.nl/en/books/formulating-fake-futures/. | View> |
Shah, N., Rajadhyaksha, A., & Hasan, N. (2022). Overload, Creep, Excess: A History of the Internet from India. Theory on Demand, INC, Amsterdam. | |
Shah, N. & Juhasz, A.(2021). Really Fake. University of Minnesota Press. | |
Heeks, R., M. Amalia, Kintu, R. & Shah, N. (2013) Inclusive Innovation: Definition, Conceptualisation and Future Research Priorities. Centre for Development Informatics: Manchester. | |
Shah, N. (2013) Whose Change is it Anyway? Towards a future of digital technologies and citizen action in network societies. Hivos: Den Haag #Practices of Collectivity | |
Shah, N. (2013) The Technosocial Subject: Cities, Cyborgs and Cyberspace. Manipal University Press: Bangalore. | |
Shah, N., Wright, G., Prakash, P. and Abraham, S. (2010). Open Government Data Study: India. Open Society Foundation: London. |
Academic Peer-reviewed Publications
Shah, N. (2024). The unbearable oldness of generative artificial intelligence: Or the re-making of digital narratives in times of ChatGPT. European Journal of Cultural Studies. https://doi.org/10.1177/13675494231223572 | View> |
Shah, N. (2022). “Meme”, Oxford Handbook of Media, Technology, and Organization Studies, (ed) Timon Beyes & Robin Halt; UK: Oxford University Press. | |
Shah, N. (2021). “(Dis)information Blackouts: Politics and practices of Internet Shutdowns”, International Journal of Communication, (ed). Rolien Hyong & Ehmat Murat, vol, 15, pp 2693-2709. | |
Shah N. (2019). “Digital humanities on the ground: post-access politics and the second wave of Digital Humanities”, South Asian Review (eds.) Roopika Risam & Rahul K. Gairola. Vol, 39 (1). | |
Shah, N. (2017). “The cup runneth over: The body, the public and its regulation in digital activism”, Crime, Media, Culture: An International Journal, 13,2. Pp. 187-198. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Identity and Identification: The Individual in the time of Networked Governance”, The Socio Legal Review, vol. 11 (2), pp. 22 – 40. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Thrice Invisible in its invisibility: Queerness and user generated ‘kand’ videos “, Ada A Journal of Gender New Media and Technology, vol. 8. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “When Machines Speak to Each Other: Unpacking the “social” in “Social Media”, Social Media + Society, Vol. 1 (3). | |
Shah, N. (2015) “The Selfie & The Slut: Bodies, technology, and public shame”, Economic & Political Weekly, Vol. 1 (17), pp.86-93. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Sluts ‘R’ Us: Intersections of gender, protocol and agency in the digital age”, First Monday, Vol.(4) 6. | |
Shah, N. (2014) “Asia in the Edges: A narrative account of the Inter-Asia Cultural Studies summer school in Bangalore”, Inter-Asia Cultural Studies, Vol. 15 (2), pp. 306-314. | |
Shah, N. (2013) “Citizen Action in the Time of the Network”, Development and Change, 44: 665–681. | |
Shah, N. (2012) “Resisting Revolutions: Questioning the radical potential of citizen action”, Development Vol.55(2): pp 173-180. | |
Shah, N. & F. Jansen (2011) “Between the Stirrup and the Ground: Relocating Digital Activism”, Democracy and Society,Vol.8 (2): pp 2-15. | |
Shah, N. (2010) “Internet and Society in Asia: challenges and next steps”, Inter Asia Cultural Studies Journal. Vol.11(4): pp 105-115. | |
Shah, N. (2010) “The promise of Invisibility: Making of an IT City”, Asia Scholarship Foundation Journal. Routledge: London. | |
Shah, N. (2009) “Now Streaming on your nearest screen: Contextualising New Digital Cinema through Kuso”, Journal of Chinese Cinemas, Vol.3(1): pp 15-31. | |
Shah, N. (2009) “Material Cyborgs; Asserted Boundaries: Formulating the cyborg as a translator”, European Journal of English Studies, Vol. 12 (2): pp 211-225. | |
Shah, N. (2009) “Of Jesters, Clowns and Pranksters: YouTube and the condition of collaborative authorship“, Journal of Moving Image, Number 8. | |
Shah, N. (2008) “Of fooling around: Digital Natives and Politics in Asia”, Bangalore: Centre for Internet & Society. | |
Shah, N. (2007) “Subject to Technology: Internet Pornography, cyber-terrorism and the Indian State”, Inter Asia Cultural Studies Journal, Vol. 8 (3): pp 349-366. | |
Shah, N. (2006) “Once Upon a Flash”, Turbulence: Sarai Reader. Sarai: New Delhi, pp 131-138. |
Scholarly Book Chapters
Shah, N. (2023). I Spy, with my little AI: How queer bodies are made dirty for digital technologies to claim cleanness. In M. Klippahn-Karge, A-K. Koster, & S. M. dos Santos Bruss (Eds.), Queer reflections on AI: Uncertain intelligences (pp. 57-72). Routledge. https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003357957 | View> |
Shah, N. (2023). Interface. In L. Platte & L. Muntean (Eds.) Materials of Culture. Radboud University Press: Nijmegen. | View> |
Shah, N. (2022). ‘Formulating Fake Futures: The tomorrow through the filters of a computational network’, Art as Forum in print, Copenhagen: University of Copenhagen. | |
Shah, N. (2022). ‘Disarticulating Infrastructure: Towards Touchstones for Infrastructural Enquiries’, Between the Material and the Possible: Infrastructural Re-examination and Speculation in Art, (eds.) Bassam El Baroni, Gerrie van Noord, and Edith Russ Haus, Oldenberg: Sternberg Press. | |
Shah, N. (2022). ‘Between Intensity and Scale: Finding our place in digital transformations’, Cultural Management in the Digital Age, (ed.) Marguerite Rumpf, Munich: Goethe Institute. | |
Shah, N. (2021). “Measure or Measure up: Preparing for Unpopulated Futures”, A Nourishing Network, (eds.) Davide Bevilacqua, Alice Strete, & Manetta Berends, Linz: Art Meets Radical Openness. | |
Shah, N. (2021). “Weaponization of Care: Or how art and culture institutions refuse dismantling their structures of power”, (German), Theater and Macht: Beobachtungen am Übergang, (Tr.) Christian Römer, Berlin: Nachtkritik. | |
Shah, N. & Ganesh, M. (2020). “Between memory and storage: Digital transitions for Art Organisations”, Forces of Art: Perspectives from a Changing World (eds.) Carin Kuoni, Jordi Balta Portoles, Nora Khan & Serubiri Moses, Amsterdam: Valiz Books. | |
Shah, N. (2020). “In-habituation as a design practice”, Designing for Precarious Citizen – Building on the Bauhaus Legacy, (eds.) Jeroen van de Eijnde & Jorn Konijn, The Netherlands: ArtEZ Press. | |
Shah, N. (2019). “Interface… is as Interface does”, Oxford Handbook of Media, Technology, and Organization Studies, (eds.) Timon Beyes, Claus Pias & Robin Holt, London: Oxford University Press. | |
Shah, N. (2019). “The cog that imagines the system: Data migration and Migrant bodies in the face of Aadhaar”, Handbook of Media and Migration, (eds.) Kevin Smets, Koen Leurs, Myria Georgiu, Saskia Witteborn & Radhika Gajjala, London: Sage Publications. | |
Shah, N. (2019). “The Nerve of the Algorithm: Unmaking myths to dismantle algorithmic anxiety”, Algorithmic Anxieties, (eds.) Karolien Buurma, Florian Mecklenburg, & Monika Gruzite, Amsterdam: NXS Publications. | |
Shah, N. (2018). “The Selfie is as the selfie does: Three propositions for the selfie in the digital turn”, Photography in India: From Archives to Contemporary Practice, (eds.) Chinar Shah & Aileen Blaney, London: Bloomsbury, pp. 175-191. | |
Shah, N. (2017) “From GUI to No UI: Locating the Interface as a site of inquiry”, Digitisation: Theories and Concepts for Empirical Cultural Research, (ed.) Gertraud Koch, London: Routledge. | |
Shah, N. (2017). “The State of the Internets: Notes for a New Historiography of Technosociality”, The Routledge Companion of Global Internet Histories, (eds.) Gerard Goggin and Mark McLelland, London: Routledge, pp. 71-82. | |
Shah, N. (2017) “In Access: Online video practices in Asia”, Asian Video Cultures: In the Penumbra of the Global, (eds.)Bhaskar Sarkar & Joshua Neves, USA: Duke University Press. | |
Shah, N. (2017). “Putting the “C” in MOOC: Of Crises, Critique, and Criticality in Higher Education.”, MOOCs and their afterlives: Experiments in Scale and Access in Higher Education, (ed.) Elizabeth Losh, Chicago: University of Chicago Press. | |
Shah, N. (2016). “Open Politics and Education”, Encyclopedia of Educational Philosophy and Theory, (ed.) Peters M., Singapore: Springer. | |
Shah, N. (2016). “Von der Userschnittstelle zur Schnittstelle ohne User: auf der Suche nach der Schnittstelle für das Internet der Dinge”, Digitalisierung: Theiroen und Konepte für die empirische Kulturforschung, Ed. Gertraud Koch. Köln: Halem. | |
Shah, N. (2015). “Das quantifizierte Selfie: Über die Handlungsmacht unserer digitalen Selbstporträts”, Springerin, Issue 4, pp 12 – 24. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Exposing Pornography: The body between the old and the new”, New Media/Old Media (ed.) Chun, W.H.K. et al , NY: Routledge. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Beyond Infrastructure: Rehumanizing Digital Humanities in India”, Between Humanities and the Digital, (eds.) David Theo Goldberg and Patrik Svenson, Cambridge: MIT Press. | |
Shah, N. and G. Bachmann (2015) “Hacking the Classroom: Rethinking learning through social media practice”, Routledge Companion to the Humanities and Social Sciences in Management Education, (eds.) Chris Steyaert, Timon Beyes, and Martin Parker, London: Routledge. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Of Heathens, Perverts and Stalkers: Examining the learner in the MOOC”, World of Learning, London: Routledge. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Queer Mobiles and Mobile Queers: Intersections, Vectors, and Movements in India”, Handbook of New Media in Asia, (Eds.) Larissa Hjorth and Olivia Khoo, Routledge: London. | |
Shah, N. (2015) “Networked Margins: Revisiting Inequality and Intersections”, Digitally Connected: Global Perspectives on Youth and Digital Media, (eds.) Sandra Cortessi and Urs Gasser, Berkman Centre for Internet & Society at Harvard University: Cambridge. | |
Shah, N. (2014) “See me Talk, Hear me Listen”, Talk To Me.(ed.) Rasa Smite, London: Mute Publications. | |
Shah, N. and L. Hjorth. (2013) “The Neighbour before the House: Digital Surveillance and Art in a network society”, Palestinian Video Art: Constellation of the Moving Image, (ed.) Makhoul, Bashir, Jerusalem: Palestinian Art Court. | |
Shah, N. (2010) “Knowing the Name: Methodologies and Challenges”, Digital Natives with a Cause? Thinkathon Position Papers, Hivos Publications : The Hague, pp. 11-34. | |
Shah, N. (2005) “Playblog: Pornography, Performance and Cyberspace”, The Net-Porn Reader. Institute of Network Cultures : Amsterdam: pp 31-44. |
Editorial Work
Shah, N., Beckenbauer, L., Zhong, V., & Nair, A. (eds.) (2023) Doing Things with Stories, ArtEZ Press.
Shah, N., Malhotra, N.A., & Hussen, T.S. (eds.) (2021) Feminist By Design, ArtEZ Press.
Shah, N., & Zhong, V. (eds). (2021), Small Books for Big Platforms (vols. 1, 2), Digital Asia Hub/ Google Policy Hub.
Shah, N. & Rasch, M. (eds.) (2021) Urgent Publishing: Tactics and Strategies for critical times, ArtEZ Press.
Shah, N. (2020), (ed). Crisis Education: Critical Education, Podcast on online learning, Netherlands: ArtEZ University of the Arts.
Shah, N., Chattopadhyay S. & Sneha. P.P. (eds.) (2015) Digital Activism in Asia: A Reader, Lueneburg: Meson Press.
Shah, N. & F. Jansen (eds.) (2011) Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? Vol. 1-4, The Hague: Hivos Publications.
Shah, N. (ed.) (2010) Digital Natives with a Cause? Position papers. The Hague: Hivos Publications.
Shah, N., and Abraham, S. (2009) Digital Natives with a Cause? A knowledge survey and framework. The Hague: Hivos Publications.
Shah, N. (Ed). (2009 -2012), Book Series Histories of the Internets in India, Bangalore: Centre for Internet and Society.
Report
Shah, N., & Majumdar, A. (2024). The Making of Misinformed Choice: Digital Technologies in Election Cycles. Insights From Nine Countries in Asia. Bertelsmann Stiftung, Gütersloh. DOI: 10.11586/2024063 | View> |