Robab Vaziri
I am a Ph.D. student at Columbia University studying Political Science, where I specialize in political theory. I obtained my M.A. in Philosophy and B.A. in both Philosophy and Political Science at Johns Hopkins University (Phi Beta Kappa). I also minored in Women, Gender, & Sexuality Studies. For various research projects conducted during my time at Johns Hopkins, I was awarded the Woodrow Wilson Research Fellowship, the Alexander Grass Humanities Institute Grant, the Life Design Lab Grant, and the Bloomberg Distinguished Professor Summer Internship Grant.
My dissertation, preliminarily entitled After Capital: From Value to Calculation In-Kind, attempts to articulate an alternative to market coordination. I rely in part on insights from the socialist calculation debates, which contested whether rational economic calculation was possible in a post-capitalist society. I discuss how subsequent market socialist responses to these debates and attempts at reforming Soviet-style material balance planning appear to overcome concerns regarding calculability yet ultimately reintroduce value. Taking as my point of departure Otto Neurath’s proposal of calculation “in kind”, I attempt to articulate a postcapitalist alternative that rejects value commensurization altogether, while avoiding the Austrian School’s epistemic objections concerning the articulation and aggregation of dispersed knowledge.
Outside of dissertation research, I am the Vice President of Columbia University’s graduate student union, SWC-UAW Local 2710. I also enjoy powerlifting, playing chess and violin, and practicing Farsi.
I was recently published in the journal, Spectre.
Feel free to contact me at robab.vaziri@columbia.edu, and access my CV here.
Robab Vaziri 