Biography

Davide Panagia is Professor of Political Science at UCLA, where he teaches courses in political theory. His work explores how politics intersects with culture, art, and technology—looking at topics like film, digital media, affect, and the ways people experience democratic life in multicultural societies.

Born in Italy, Davide Panagia immigrated to Winnipeg, Canada at the age of six where he spent his childhood and young adult life. He received an Honours degree in Political Science from the University of Manitoba (1989-1993) and went on to complete an M.Litt. in Political Theory at Oxford University as a Rhodes Scholar (Prairies/Magdalen, 1993-1995). From there, he moved to Baltimore, MD where he graduated with a Ph.D. in Political Science from The Johns Hopkins University (1995-2002).

Before immigrating to the US and joining UCLA’s Political Science department in 2014, Panagia held the Canada Research Chair in Cultural Studies at Trent University (2004-2014). He has served as an editor for major academic journals including Theory & Event (2010-2015) and Political Theory (2020-2023).

Panagia’s research focuses on the role of aesthetics in the study of political culture, looking particularly to how experiences of diversity, equality, and participation in multicultural societies shape public values and senses of shared belongings. He brings expertise in Continental philosophy, critical algorithm studies, film theory, and modern French thought.

Panagia’s book publications include the following titles:

Sentimental Empiricism: Politics, Philosophy and Criticism in Postwar France (Fordham University Press, 2024); Please click on the title for a free Open Access copy.

Intermedialities: Political Theory and Cinematic Experience (Northwestern University Press, 2024);

Rancière’s Sentiments (Duke University Press, 2018);

Ten Theses for an Aesthetics of Politics (University of Minnesota Press – Forerunners, 2016);

Impressions of Hume: Cinematic Thinking and the Politics of Discontinuity (Rowman and Littlefield, 2013);

The Political Life of Sensation (Duke University Press, 2009);

The Poetics of Political Thinking (Duke University Press, 2006)

Education

B.A. (Hons.), University of Manitoba, 1993Master of Letters, University of Oxford, Rhodes Scholar, 1998M.A. in Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, 1999Ph.D. in Political Science, Johns Hopkins University, 2002

Selected Publications

“On the Possibility of the Political Theory of Algorithms.” Political Theory, Online.

“On the Political Ontology of the Dispositif.” Critical Inquiry 45 (3), 2019: 714–46.