Berkeley Colloquium Next Week: From State Theory to Theories of Empire

BERKELEY SOCIOLOGY COLLOQUIUM SERIES

JULIA ADAMS

Yale University

SOVEREIGNTY AND SOCIOLOGY

From State Theory to Theories of Empire

Monday, 22 February 2010, 2-3:30 p.m.

Blumer Room, 402 Barrows Hall

Imperial crisis is the analytical axis on which turns two national states of emergency: the Weimar Republic (1918-33) and America on “the Eve of Destruction” (1965-1975). But while Max Weber debated, with Karl Schmitt, the problem of sovereignty at the core of the German imperium, American sociologists – even those inspired by Weber -- did not register either the pressing moment of political decision or the imperial crisis that they and their country faced. Why so? What were the consequences for American sociology? How, in the midst of our own imperial and domestic governmental crisis, can we reshape political sociology to do better today?

Julia Adams is Professor of Sociology, Yale University.