Asma Abbas

Asma Abbas is a Professor of Politics and Philosophy at Bard College at Simon's Rock, where she also serves as Director of the Simon’s Rock Annex for Transdisciplinary and Experimental Studies. Her academic affiliations include roles such as Dean of Academics at the Indus Valley School of Art and Architecture, Fulbright-Masaryk Distinguished Chair at Masaryk University, and senior research fellow at the Global Centre of Advanced Studies. Abbas holds a PhD in Political Science from Pennsylvania State University, an MA in Liberal Studies from the New School, and MBA/BBA degrees from the Institute of Business Administration in Karachi.

Her research focuses on anticolonial and communist politics, poetics, and aesthetics; materialism and religion; critical theory; and postcolonial global politics. Teaching interests include philosophical aesthetics, histories of political thought, postcolonial studies, and political education. She is also engaged in transdisciplinary initiatives like the Simon’s Rock Annex, the Hic Rosa Collective, and the Falsework School for political education.

Abbas has contributed to journals such as Democratic Theory and Politics and Culture, and authored monographs like Another Love: A Politics of the Unrequited (2018) and Liberalism and Human Suffering (2010). Her work critiques liberal frameworks, explores affective politics, and advocates for anti-colonial, anti-capitalist, and anti-nationalist worldmaking through transdisciplinary collaboration.

Her educational projects emphasize experimental pedagogy and institutional innovation, including the Early College Commons and Press funded by the Open Societies Universities Network. Abbas also co-founded the Common Tern Internationalist Co-op, blending cultural work with political education.