Skip to Content
Report an accessibility problem
Majia Nadesan

Majia Nadesan

Senior Global Futures Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory

majia@asu.edu

602-543-6668

School of Social and Behavioral Sciences
Arizona State University, West campus
PO Box 37100
Phoenix, AZ 85069-7100

Titles

  • Senior Global Futures Scholar, Julie Ann Wrigley Global Futures Laboratory

Biography

Majia Nadesan is a professor of communication in the School of Social and Behavioral Sciences in the New College of Interdisciplinary Arts and Sciences.  She received her Ph.D. in communication studies in 1993 from Purdue University after earning her B.S. and M.S. in the same subject from San Diego State University.  Prior to joining the faculty at ASU's College of Human Services in 1994, Dr. Nadesan was an assistant professor at Syracuse University.

Dr. Nadesan’s interdisciplinary research examines the ethical implications of societal governing logics and risk-management strategies. She examined how expert understandings of autism shape how people diagnosed with the disorder are understood and treated in her book Constructing Autism (Routledge, 2005). In Governmentality, Biopower and Everyday Life (2008, 2011, Routledge) she looked at how global economic logics and technological assemblages shape everyday life practices and opportunities for US citizens. In Governing Childhood she examined how these same economic logics and technological infrastructures impact children’s daily lives, creating vastly unequal childhoods (Palgrave, 2010). More recently, she has looked at how politics and scientific uncertainty complicate risk assessment in Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk (Palgrave, 2013) and Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century (Lexington, 2016).

At ASU's West campus, Dr. Nadesan teaches courses that look at economic and corporate communication, propaganda and social advocacy, and interpretive and critical methods.

Education

  • PhD, Critical Approaches to Communication and Organizational Communication, Purdue University, 1993
  • MS, Communication Theory (Rhetorical and Political concentrations), San Diego State University, 1989
  • BS, Communication Theory (Political Science minor), San Diego State University, 1987

Expertise

Journal Articles

2019

Nadesan, M. H. 2019. Nuclear governmentality: Governing nuclear security and radiation risk in post-Fukushima Japan. Security Dialogue 50(6):512-530. DOI: 10.1177/0967010619868442. (link )

2017

Poletaev, A. B. and M. H. Nadesan. 2017. About drunkard and the keys which were not found. Journal of Vaccines & Clinical Trials 1(1):. (link )

2015

McClellan, J. G. and M. H. Nadesan. 2015. Extending critical pedagogies: Attending to economic communication and inspiring critical engagement. Management Communication Quarterly 29(2):315-321. DOI: 10.1177/0893318915571349. (link )

2011

Nadesan, M. H. 2011. The biopolitics of transactional capitalism. Media Tropes 3(1):23-27. (link )

2008

Cheney, G. and M. H. Nadesan. 2008. Forum conclusion: A response to these essays and a prologue to further investigations. Management Communication Quarterly 22(1):181-189. DOI: 10.1177/0893318908318261. (link )

Nadesan, M. H. 2008. Hurricane Katrina: Governmentality, risk, and responsibility. Controversia 6(1):67-90. (link )

2006

Nadesan, M. 2006. The MYD panopticon: Neo-liberalism, governmentality and educaion. Radical Pedagogy 8(1):. (link )

2002

Nadesan, M. H. 2002. Engineering the entrepreneurial infant: Brain science, infant development toys, and governmentality. Cultural Studies 16(3):401-432. DOI: 10.1080/09502380210128315. (link )

2001

Nadesan, M. H. 2001. Fortune on globalization and the new economy: Manifest destiny in a technological age. Management Communication Quarterly 14(3):498-506. DOI: 10.1177/0893318901143008. (link )

Nadesan, M. H. 2001. Post-Fordism, political economy, and critical organizational communication studies. Management Communication Quarterly 15(2):259-267. DOI: 10.1177/0893318901152005. (link )

2000

Nadesan, M. H. and A. Trethewey. 2000. Performing the enterprising subject: Gendered strategies for success (?). Text and Performance Quarterly 20(3):223-250. DOI: 10.1080/10462930009366299. (link )

1999

Nadesan, M. H. 1999. The discourses of corporate spirtualism and evangelical capitalism. Management Communication Quarterly 13(1):3-42. DOI: 10.1177/0893318999131001. (link )

Nadesan, M. H. 1999. The popular success literature and “a brave new Darwinian workplace”. Consumption Markets & Culture 3(1):27-60. DOI: 10.1080/10253866.1999.9670329. (link )

1998

Nadesan, M. H. and P. Sotirin. 1998. The romance and science of ‘breast is best’: Discursive contradictions and contexts of breast‐feeding choices. Text and Performance Quarterly 18(3):217-232. DOI: 10.1080/10462939809366225. (link )

1997

Nadesan, M. H. 1997. Constructing paper dolls: The discourse of personality testing in organizational practice. Communication Theory 7(3):189-218. DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-2885.1997.tb00150.x. (link )

Nadesan, M. H. 1997. Essai: Dislocating (instrumental) organizational time. Organization Studies 18(3):481-510. DOI: 10.1177/017084069701800306. (link )

Nadesan, M. H. 1997. Gender and temporality in intepersonal systems. Symbolic Interaction 20(1):21-43. DOI: 10.1525/si.1997.20.1.21. (link )

1996

Nadesan, M. H. 1996. Organizational identity and space of action. Organization Studies 17(1):49-81. DOI: 10.1177/017084069601700103. (link )

Books

2020

Ron, A. and M. Nadesan. 2020. Mapping Populism: Approaches and Methods. Routledge. ISBN: 9780367271442.

2016

Nadesan, M. 2016. Crisis Communication, Liberal Democracy, and Ecological Sustainability: The Threat of Financial and Energy Complexes in the Twenty-First Century. Lexington Books. Lanham, MD. ISBN: 978-0739194959.

2014

Nadesan, M., A. Boys, A. McKillop and R. Wlcox eds. 2014. Fukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization?. The Dispossesion Publishing Group. ISBN: 978-1-312-50456-1.

2013

Nadesan, M. 2013. Fukushima and the Privatization of Risk. Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN: 978-1-137-34312-3.

2011

Nadesan, M. H. 2011. Governmentality, Biopower, and Everyday Life. Routledge. ISBN: 978-0415897969.

2010

Nadesan, M. H. 2010. Governing Childhood into the 21st Century: Biopolitical Technologies of Childhood Management and Education. Palgrave MacMillan. ISBN: 978-0230613218.

2008

Nadesan, M. H. 2008. Governmentality, Biopower, and Everyday Life. Routledge. ISBN: 978-0415958547.

2005

Nadesan, M. H. 2005. Constructing Autism: Unravelling the “Truth” and Understanding the Social. Routledge. ISBN: 978-0415321815.

Book Chapters

2019

Nadesan, M. 2019. Autistic ontologies and the open genome. Pp. 43-62 In: Das, U. N., N. Papaneophytou and T. El-Kour eds., Autism 360°. Academic Press. ISBN: 9780128184660.

Nadesan, M. 2019. Governmentality: Genealogical analysis of modern logics of government. Sage Research Methods Cases. SAGE. DOI: 10.4135/9781526495525. ISBN: 9781526495525.

2018

Nadesan, M. 2018. "Radiophobia" and the politics of social contagion. In: Fahs, B., A. Mann, E. Swank and S. Stage eds., Transforming Contagion: Risky Contacts among Bodies, Disciplines, and Nations. Rutgers University Press. ISBN: 9780813589596.

Nadesan, M. H. 2018. Catastrophe, transperancy, and social responsibility on online platforms: Contesting cold shutdown at the Fukushima nuclear plant. Pp. 291-302 In: Lindgreen, A., J. Vanhamme, F. Maon and R. Mardon eds., Communicating Corporate Social Responsibility in the Digital Era. Routledge. New York, NY. ISBN: 978-1472484161.

Nadesan, M. 2018. Radiation refugees and chronic low-dose exposures to ionizing radiation: The rights of the exposed. In: Klocke, B. V., R. Perrucci and J. Shefner eds., Justice 21, Global Projects 28. University of Bristol Policy Press. UK.

2017

Nadesan, M. H. and G. Cheney. 2017. Workplace democracy. In: Scott, C. R. and L. Lewis eds., The International Encyclopedia of Organizational Communication. John Wiley & Sons. ISBN: 9781118955567.

2016

Nadesan, M. and M. Pasqualetti. 2016. Dispossession, justice, and a sustainable energy future. Pp. 585-619 In: Van de Graaf, T., B. K. Sovacool, A. Ghosh, F. Kern and M. T. Klare eds., The Palgrave Handbook of the International Political Economy of Energy. Palgrave Macmillan UK. ISBN: 978-1-137-55630-1.

2014

Nadesan, M. 2014. Biopower. In: Teo, T. ed., Encyclopedia of Critical Psychology. Springer. ISBN: 978-1-4614-5584-4.

Nadesan, M. 2014. From Hiroshima to Fukushima. Pp. 2-23 In: Nadesan, M., A. Boys, A. McKillop and R. Wilcox eds., ukushima: Dispossession or Denuclearization. The Dispossesion Publishing Group.

Nadesan, M. 2014. Fukushima and dispossession: The end of liberal democracy in Japan?. Pp. 100-129 In: Nadesan, M., A. Boys, A. McKillop and R. Wilcox eds., Fukushima: Disposession or Denuclearization?. The Dispossession Publishing Group. ISBN: 978-1312498174.

Nadesan, M. 2014. Media armageddons and the death of liberal biopolitics. Pp. 670-696 In: Gates, K. ed., The International Encyclopedia of Media Studies: Media Studies Futures. Vol VI. Wiley-Blackwell. ISBN: 978-1-118-73356-1.

2013

Nadesan, M. H. 2013. Autism and genetics: Profit, risk, and bare life. Pp. 117-142 In: Davidson, J. and M. Orsini eds., Worlds of Autism: Across the Spectrum of Neurological Difference. University of Minnesota Press. Minneapolis, MN. ISBN: 978-0816688890.

Nadesan, M. H. 2013. Neofeudalism and the financial crisis: Implications for Occupy Wall Street. Pp. 35-52 In: Guarriello Heath, R., C. Vail Fletcher and R. Munoz eds., Understandin Occupy from Wall Street to Portland: Applied Studies in CommunicationTheory. Lexington Books. Plymouth, UK. ISBN: 978-0739183212.

Nadesan, M. H. 2013. The demise of liberal biopolitics: Wealth accumulation and disposable populations. In: Colaguori, C. ed., Security, Life & Death: Governmentality & Biopower in the Post 9/11 Era. de Sitter Publications. ISBN: 978-1897160817.

2012

Nadesan, M. H. 2012. Children, the Great Recession and shifting calculi of risk. Pp. 35-54 In: Bialostok, S., R. L. Whitman and W. S. Bradley eds., Education and the Risk Society. Sense Publishers. Rotterdam, The Netherlands. ISBN: 978-9460919596.

2011

Nadesan, M. H. 2011. Transparency and neoliberal logics of corporate economic and social responsibility. Pp. 252-275 In: Ihlen, O., J. Bartlett and S. May eds., The Handbook of Communication and Corporate Social Responsibility. John Wiley & Sons, Inc.. ISBN: 9781444336344.

2009

Nadesan, M. 2009. Governing autism: Neoliberalism, risk, and technolgies of the self. Pp. 379-396 In: Peters, M. A., A. C. Besley, M. Olssen, S. Maurer and S. Weber eds., Governmentality Studies in Education. Sense Publishers. ISBN: 978-9087909840.

2008

Nadesan, M. H. and M. Osteen. 2008. Constructing autism: A brief genealogy. Pp. 78-96 Autism and Representation. Routledge. New York, NY. ISBN: 978-0415956444.

2006

Nadesan, M. H. 2006. Organization, identity and space of action. In: Putnam, L. L. and K. J. Krohn eds., Organizational Communication. SAGE Publications Ltd. ISBN: 978-1412910453.

2003

Nadesan, M. H. 2003. Traversing dualisms and situating the embodied self in organizational theory and practice. Pp. 89-108 In: Ramsey, R. E. and D. J. Miller eds., Experiences Between Philosophy and Communication: Engaging the Philosophical Contributions of Calvin O. Schrag. State University of New York Press. Albany, NY. ISBN: 978-0791458761.