Kristin Victoria Plys

Kristin Plys (Ph.D. 2016, Sociology, Yale University) is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto Mississauga. Professor Plys’ research sits at the intersection of political economy, postcolonial theory, labour and labour movements, historical sociology, and global area studies. The greater part of her intellectual work analyzes the historical trajectory of global capitalism as seen from working class and anti-colonial movements in the Global South. This research program has led her to take a particular interest in Marxist political economy, social protest against authoritarianism in the 1970s Global South, avant-garde visual art as left politics in the Global South, labour history and histories of café culture, and historical method.
Her first book, Brewing Resistance: Indian Coffee House and the Emergency in Postcolonial India (Cambridge University Press 2020) uncovered histories of the resistance movement that was launched from New Delhi’s vibrant café culture during India’s brief period of dictatorship (1975-77). Her second book (with Charles Lemert), Capitalism and its Uncertain Future (Routledge 2021) examines how social theory imagines capitalism. Her current research in-progress investigates how visual artists, writers, poets, and leftists fomented opposition against Pakistan’s 1977 military coup through a ‘cultural front’ that innovated new forms of anti-authoritarian writing, painting, and poetry rooted in Lahore’s vibrant café culture.