Lisa Wedeen is Professor of

Political Science Political science is the scientific study of politics. It is a social science dealing with systems of governance and power, and the analysis of political activities, political thought, political behavior, and associated constitutions and la ...

and the College and Co-Director of the Chicago Center for Contemporary Theory at the

University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, U of C, or UChi) is a private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois. Its main campus is located in Chicago's Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood. The University of Chic ...

. In 1995, Wedeen received her Ph.D. in political science at the

University of California, Berkeley The University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley, Berkeley, Cal, or California) is a public land-grant research university in Berkeley, California. Established in 1868 as the University of California, it is the state's first land-grant u ...

. Her former advisor is

Hanna Pitkin Hanna Fenichel Pitkin (born July 17, 1931)''Contemporary Authors Online'', s.v. "Hanna Fenichel Pitkin." Accessed March 5, 2008. is an American political theorist. She is best known for her seminal study ''The Concept of Representation'', publi ...

. She has taught courses on nationalism, identity formation, power and resistance, and citizenship. Her work on the Middle East includes ''Ambiguities of Domination'', an ethnographic study of the culture of the

spectacle In general, spectacle refers to an event that is memorable for the appearance it creates. Derived in Middle English from c. 1340 as "specially prepared or arranged display" it was borrowed from Old French ''spectacle'', itself a reflection of the ...

in Syria under Hafez al-Assad.

Selected publications

* "Acting "As If": Symbolic Politics and Social Control in Syria" (1998) * ''"Ambiguities of Domination: Politics, Rhetoric, and Symbols in Contemporary Syria"'' (University of Chicago Press, 1999) * "Concepts and Commitments in the Study of Democracy" in ''Problems and Methods in the Study of Politics'' (2004) * "Conceptualizing Culture: Possibilities For Political Science In "APSR" (2002) * "Ethnography as an Interpretive Enterprise" (2009) *"Ideology and Humor in Dark Times: Notes from Syria" (2013) * ''Peripheral Visions: Politics, Power, and Performance in Yemen'' (University of Chicago Press, 2008) * "Reflections on Ethnographic Work in Political Science" (2010) *"Seeing Like a Citizen, Acting Like a State: Exemplary Events in Unified Yemen" in ''Comparative Studies in Society and History'' (2003)

References

External links

Webpage on University of Chicago website

Article in Vol 27 No. 18 of ''The University of Chicago Chronicle''
Year of birth missing (living people) Living people UC Berkeley College of Letters and Science alumni University of Chicago faculty American women political scientists American political scientists American women academics 21st-century American women {{US-polisci-bio-stub