Make Sovereignty Great Again: American Feelings in a Global Age

media release: Elvehjem Building, Room L140, 800 University Avenue

Free and open to all.

Across the U.S., citizens have begun exercising individual sovereignty in surprising ways. Internet influencers promote “life hacking” to optimize their life spans, while tech “bros” build bunkers to survive imagined future collapse. Gun owners carry military-grade weapons in public, prepared to deploy them if they feel threatened. Self-deputized people patrol the southern border and thwart migrants trying to enter the U.S. Anti-trans laws empower private citizens to police others’ gender presentations. All of these acts reflect efforts by American citizens to Make Sovereignty Great Again. This Humanities Without Boundaries talk asks where this impulse comes from: Why, at this particular historical moment, do so many Americans seek to shore up their individual sovereignty in such controlling ways? And what does it reflect about the larger political-economic challenges people currently face in a destabilizing, neoliberal era?

Elisabeth R. Anker is professor of American studies and political science at George Washington University. She researches power, violence, and freedom at the crossroads of political theory and cultural criticism. She is the author of Ugly Freedoms (Duke, 2022) and Orgies of Feeling: Melodrama and the Politics of Freedom (Duke 2014). She currently serves as co-editor of the journal Theory & Event, and frequently comments on current events for television.