Shiben Banerji
Associate Professor
Contact
Bio
BA, Columbia University, New York, NY; MCP, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA; PhD, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA. Publications: In the Shadows of Democracy: Possibilities for Rhetoric Beyond Rhetorical Studies (Intemezzo Books, 2024); Lineages of the Global City: Occult Modernism and the Spiritualization of Democracy (University of Texas Press, 2025). Awards: Mellon Junior Fellowship in the Humanities, Urbanism, and Design; Graham Foundation for Advanced Studies in the Fine Arts Publication Production Grant
Personal Statement
Shiben's research and teaching brings the history of architectural, landscape, and urban design into conversation with the history and theory of rhetoric. This work is broadly organized around two distinct sets of interests. The first concerns antique and early modern architectural inquiries into the nature of political oratory. The second concerns the architectural media by which subjects perceive difference and contingency, and experience their choices and actions as democratic even in absence of political rights.
Shiben has held visiting appointments in the Penn History Department, the Institute for the Humanities and the Department of Art History at the University of Illinois at Chicago, and the Indian School of Public Policy.
Recent Thesis Advisees
- Melanie Ball (2021) “An Air of Serenity: Chicago’s Carl Sandburg Village and the Construction of Middle-Class Desire, c.1962”
- Nicolay Duque-Robayo (2021) “Curiosity in the City: Affect and the Formation of the Reflective Planner”