Ani Chen

Ani Chen is a feminist political theorist whose research asks, “Who gets a say in politics?” Her dissertation examines why women have historically struggled to be heard as authoritative speakers and how they overcome this obstacle in plays from classical Athens to 20th-century France. By developing a theory of audience-making, she shows how playwrights such as Sophocles, Euripides, Simone de Beauvoir, and Hélène Cixous shape audiences’ perceptions to recognize women’s voices as authoritative.

Her broader interests include the history of political thought, feminist theory, contentious politics, and the intersection of politics with literature, performance, and visual culture. She has served on the editorial board of Diacritics and her work has been supported by the Cornell University Society for the Humanities, the Dean’s Working Group in Media Studies, the Institute for European Studies, and the Deutscher Akademischer Austauschdienst (DAAD).