Lisa Wedeen is the Mary R. Morton Distinguished Service Professor of Political Science and the College, Director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory, and Associate Faculty in Anthropology at the University of Chicago. Her publications include three books: Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria (1999; with a new preface, 2015); Peripheral Visions: Publics, Power, and Performance in Yemen (2008); and Authoritarian Apprehensions: Ideology, Judgment, and Mourning in Syria (2019). The latter has won four awards. She is also the coeditor of three volumes including Conspiracy/Theory with Joseph Masco (2024). She was elected to the British Academy in 2026.
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While the bulk of my empirical work has focused on authoritarian imaginaries in Syria and Yemen, here I want to take what I have learned in the Middle East analytically and use
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