Roundtable on Lisa Wedeen's Authoritarian Apprehensions (Chicago 2019)

Session Submission Type: Author meet critics

Session Description

Lisa Wedeen's new book Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria (Chicago 2019) provides a bracing and groundbreaking account of ideology, authoritarianism, and neoliberalism through the prism of the Syrian civil war. Drawing on extensive fieldwork and a variety of Syrian artistic and cultural forms, the book traces the imbrications of neoliberal subjectivity and authoritarian statecraft under the regime of Bashar al-Asad. More generally, Wedeen provides a striking interrogation of the ideological investments that sustain subjects ambivalent attachments to power, delimit forms of political resistance, and structure the ever-present challenges of living otherwise.

This roundtable will bring gather a cross-field and interdisciplinary group of scholars to respond to and build on Wedeen’s arguments. Like her earlier work, Authoritarian Apprehensions traverses comparative politics, political theory, political anthropology, and cultural studies. The scholars on the panel, then, will also situate Wedeen’s new book in larger debates about the relationship between different approaches to the study of politics in the Middle East. Amaney Jamal and Asli Bâli will situate Wedeen’s argument in the context of the study of Middle Eastern politics. Banu Bargu and Elisabeth Anker will consider the book from the perspective of debates in political theory about neoliberalism and ideology. Finally, Elliott Colla will examine Wedeen’s contributions to debates about art, aesthetics, and protest in the Middle East.

Sub Unit

• DIVISION 2: Foundations of Political Theory

Chair

• John P. McCormick University of Chicago

Presenters

• Amaney Jamal Princeton University

• Asli U. Bali University of California, Los Angeles

• Banu Bargu University of California, Santa Cruz

• ELLIOTT COLLA Georgetown University

• Elisabeth Robin Anker George Washington University

• Lisa Wedeen University of Chicago