Anthro 2679 - Kings and Criminals: Figurations of Sovereignty

Prof. Malavika Reddy

Th 12-2:45pm

This course considers how anthropology has understood sovereignty, as theoretical object and political process. What is at stake in asking about how authority is founded and sustained? How have anthropologists posed these questions and, in so doing, related their findings both a) to philosophical inquiries into the ontology of politics and b) to colonial and imperial projects? A central concern of the course is how sovereignty is embodied, hence a focus on figuration. Close attention will be paid to the ways in which anthropologists have grappled with the material worlds of sovereignty – crowns, ritual, flesh and so on – in part to enable students to construct a methodological toolkit to apprehend and analyze sovereign forms.