ANTHR 4439 - [Sovereignty and Biopolitics]

(GHB) (CA-AS)

Spring. Next offered 2017-2018. 4 credits.

Co-meets with ANTHR 7439.

M. Fiskesjö.

This seminar course’s starting point is Agamben’s widely discussed ideas about “bare life” in relation to modern state sovereignty and to continuities with earlier forms of sovereignty. The course unfolds as a political-legal anthropology of sovereignty and citizenship, the exclusion of undesirables, and modern biopolitical control mechanisms. Readings will draw on classics from the anthropology and other literature on sovereignty and kingship, as well as case studies dealing with the modern Chinese state, the US, the Soviet Union, etc.