Behailu Shiferaw Mihirete is a third-year PhD student in the Rhetoric, Media and Publics program. He examines popular and institutional rhetorical practices and their roles in the constitution, performance, and negotiation of national identities and membership. His projects shed light on how socio-political actors use least-suspected rhetorical practices to interpellate their audiences into desired subjectivities. One thread of his research, for example, investigates the political rhetoric of public commemoration, i.e. how hegemonic groups strategically represent the past to gain or maintain social control in the present and future, and how those practices are contested by counterpublics. His interests converge in his pursuit of understanding how identities and national imaginaries are constituted and contested in and through public culture. Behailu holds an MSc in Politics and Communication from the London School of Economics and Political Science (2019); an MA in Journalism and Communication from Addis Ababa University (2009); and a BA in Foreign Language and Literature from Hawassa University (2006).