Course Descriptions

This seminar is meant to explore alternatives to liberal representative democracy. Is politics equivalent to state action? Or can it be found in seemingly unlikely places, such as Egyptian social movements, Argentine neighborhood assemblies, or Roma settlements? As David Graeber (Graeber 2008) asks, is "democracy" an inherently Western concept? Does it refer to a form of governance (a mode of communal self-organization), or a form of government (one particular way of organizing a state apparatus)? Today, when politics is the preserve of statesmen and professors, experts and media mavens, and not the subject of widespread public debate, counter-hegemonic models of doing and thinking politics are well worth of examining--perhaps more then ever before. Priority to ANTH students