Chetan Bhatt joined LSE in 2010 as Professor of Sociology and was Director of the Centre for the Study of Human Rights until 2017. He is a member of LSE Human Rights and convenor of the MSc Human Rights and Politics. He was previously Professor of Sociology and Head of Department at the Department of Sociology, Goldsmiths, University of London. Before this, he taught at the Department of Sociology at the University of Essex and the Department of Sociology and Social Policy at the University of Southampton (the latter as an ESRC research fellow). His gained his PhD (Politics and Sociology) at Birkbeck College, University of London and his BA Hons (Social and Political Sciences) at Sidney Sussex College, University of Cambridge. He was a member of the HEFCE REF 2018 Sub-panel for Sociology.

In addition to extensive work over many years on human rights, anti-racism, and social/economic inequality, Chetan Bhatt's research interests include modern social theory and modern philosophy, the religious right and the far-right, nationalism and racism, and the geopolitical sociology of South Asia and the Middle East. His current projects include: the Euro-American far-right; new social media and the political right; Dalit human rights.  Other projects have included the regulation of Palestinian everyday life; bloggers facing death threats in Bangladesh and the UK; politics, violence and virtue in modern politics; the geosociology of armed religious groups. Some of this work is discussed in his TED talk: Dare to refuse the origin myths that claim who you are.

Chetan Bhatt welcomes new MPhil / PhD students in areas related to social and political theory; the international far right; transnational religious right movements; secularism; critiques of identity politics; right-wing politics and social media platforms. His current areas of PhD supervision include: human rights movements and postcolonial authoritarianism in Egypt; political violence in Turkey; political movements in Syria and Palestine; racism and migrant detention in the UK and Canada; racism in Danish immigration policy. Previous areas of supervision have included: the new European far-right; law and regulation in Palestine; Middle-Eastern cities and heritage; xenophobic violence and informal townships in south Africa; the international counter-jihad movement; memory and atrocity in Argentina; the transformations of political Islam; gender, secularism and the British state; new modes of Israeli state power and Zionism; diverse families / sexualities; Trinidadian carnival.

Selected publications

Bhatt, C. (2020), ‘White Extinction:  metaphysical elements of Western fascism’, Theory, Culture and Society, 38(1).

Bhatt, C. (2020), ‘Words and violence: militant Islamist attacks on bloggers in Bangladesh and the UK, Ethnic and Racial Studies. https://doi.org/10.1080/01419870.2020.1828599

Bhatt, C. (2018), Book Review of Joachim J. Savelsberg, Representing Mass Violence: Conflicting Responses to Human Rights Violations in Darfur, American Journal of Sociology, vol. 123, issue 6: 1863-1865

Bhatt, C. (2017) 'Human rights activism and salafi-jihadi violence', International Journal of Human Rights, pp. 1-21

Bhatt, C. (2013) ‘The Virtues of Violence: the salafi-jihadi political universe’, Theory, Culture & Society

Bhatt, C. (2013) ‘Simple Minds: the evolutionary absolutism of Stephen Pinker’, Sociology, December 2013, vol. 47, no. 6, 1229-1232 [Review essay]

Bhatt, C. (2013) ‘Nationalism’, in K. A. Jacobsen, H. Basu, A. Malinar, & V. Narayanan eds, Brill’s Encyclopedia of Hinduism Volume V, Koninklijke Brill NV: Leiden, pp. 750-759.

Bhatt, C. (2012) ‘Human Rights and the Transformations of War’, Sociology, Volume 46, Issue 5, pp. 811 - 826

Bhatt, C. (2012) ‘The New Xenologies of Europe: Civil Tensions and Mythic Pasts’, Journal of Civil Society, Special Issue: Changing the Debate on European Social Space, Guest Editors: C. Bhatt and H. Seckinelgin, Volume 8, Number 3

Bhatt, C. & Seckinelgin, H. (2012) ‘European Social Space or Europe’s Social Spaces?’, Journal of Civil Society, Special Issue: Changing the Debate on European Social Space, Guest Editors: C. Bhatt and H. Seckinelgin, Volume 8, Number 3

Bhatt, C. (2012) ‘Secularism and Conflicts about Rights’, in N. Yuval-Davis and P. Marfleet eds. Secularism, Racism and the Politics of Belonging, London: Runnymede.

Bhatt, C. (2012) ‘Kant’s Raw Man and the Miming of Primitivism: Spivak’s A Critique of Postcolonial Reason in P. Bilimoria and D. Al-Kassim eds. Postcolonial Reason and its Critique, Delhi: Oxford University Press, pp. 184-201. Previously published in Radical Philosophy, Vol. 105, January/February 2001.

Bhatt, C. (2011) ‘Doing a dissertation’ in C. Seale ed. Researching Society and Culture, Third Edition, London: Sage.

Bhatt, C. (2010) 'The Spirit lives on: race and the disciplines', in P. Hill-Collins & J. Solomos eds., The Sage Handbook of Racial and Ethnic Studies (London & Thousand Oaks: Sage).

Bhatt, C. (2010) 'The "British jihad" and the curves of religious violence', Ethnic and Racial Studies Special Issue: Migrants and Minorities Mobilization. Volume 33, Issue 1, pages 39 - 59.

Bhatt, C. (2008) 'The times of movements: a response to Judith Butler', British Journal of Sociology, Volume 59 Issue 1, pages 25 - 33.

Bhatt, C. (2007), 'Frontlines and interstices in the global war on terror', Development and Change, vol. 38, no. 6, November, pp. 1073-1093.

Bhatt, C. (2006) 'The Fetish of the Margin: Religious Absolutism, Anti-Racism and Postcolonial Silence' in New Formations, Special Issue - Postcolonial Studies After Iraq, no. 59, Autumn, pp. 98-115.

Bhatt, C. (2005) 'From the rivers of hate: strange travels in Indo-German fantasy' A. Schneider, A. Fitz, M. Kröger and D. Wenner eds. Atlas of Indo-German Fantasies, (Parthas: Berlin), ISBN: 3866019106.

Bhatt, C. (2004) 'Contemporary geopolitics and alterity research' in M. Bulmer & J. Solomos eds. Researching Race and Racism - Social Research Today Series (London: Routledge) ISBN: 0415300908.

Bhatt, C. (2004) ' Majority ethnic claims and authoritarian nationalism', in E. Kaufmann ed. Majority Groups and Dominant Minorities: Conceptualizing Dominant Ethnicity, (London: Routledge).

Bhatt, C. (2004) 'Democracy and Hindu nationalism', Democratization, Special Issue: Religion, Democracy and Democratization, vol 11, no. 4, August 2004, pp. 133-154.

Bhatt, C. (2002) 'The land, the blood and the passion: the Hindu far-right' in J. Weeks, J. Holland & M. Waites eds. Sexualities and Society: a reader (Cambridge: Polity) ISBN: 0745622496 / 0745622488.

Bhatt, C. (2001) Hindu Nationalism: origins, ideologies and modern myths (Oxford, Berg/ New York, New York University Press). ISBN 1859733484 PB / 1859733433 HB, 232 pages.

Bhatt, C. (2001) 'Kant's raw man and the miming of primitivism: Spivak's Critique of Postcolonial Reason' Radical Philosophy, January, ISSN: 0300-211X, pp. 37-44.

Bhatt, C. (2000) 'Dharmo rakshati rakshitah: Hindutva movements in the UK', Ethnic & Racial Studies Special Issue, 23:3, May, ISSN 0141-9870, pp. 559-593.

Bhatt, C & Mukta, P. (2000) 'Hindutva in the West: mapping the antinomies of globalization', Ethnic and Racial Studies Special Issue, 23:3, May, ISSN 0141-9870, pp. 407-441.

Bhatt, C. (2000) 'Primordial Being: Enlightenment, Schopenhauer and the Indian subject of postcolonial theory', Radical Philosophy, April, ISSN 0300-211X, pp. 28-41.

Selected policy-related publications

Bhatt, C. (2003) Promoting Race Equality in the English NHS, Commission for Racial Equality, April, 50 pages.

Bhatt, C., Phellas, C. & Pozniak, A. (2000) National African HIV Prevention Projects, Evaluation Report to the Department of Health / EHHA, (London: Goldsmiths College/Enfield & Haringey Health Authority) ISBN 0902986635, 84 pages.

Bhatt, C. (1997) Positive Responses: HIV and African communities in Enfield & Haringey (London: Enfield & Haringey Health Authority), 93 pages.

Bhatt, C. (1996) Looking at Epidemiology (vol. 1) (London: The HIV Project) ISBN 1899240209, 40 pages.

Bhatt, C. (1996) HIV Primary and Secondary Prevention issues in African communities (vol. 2) (London: The HIV Project) ISBN 189924025X, 52 pages.

Bhatt, C. (1996) Needs Assessment (vol. 3) (London: The HIV Project) ISBN I899240306, 46 pages.

Bhatt, C. (1992) 'Empowerment and Understanding', in S. Sandberg et al eds. Working Where the Risks Are (London: Health Education Authority) ISBN 1854484214