The Erasure of American Empire: The Cold War and the “Boomerang” of Empire

Join us for Day One of the 2025 Rothbaum Distinguished Lecture in Representative Government, where Prof. Maggie Blackhawk (NYU School of Law) presents "Colonial Administration: Empire, Civilization, and the Making of Political Science."

In a series of three lectures, Professor Blackhawk will trace the formation of the modern discipline of political science with empire at its foundation—particularly, the field of "colonial administration”—and examine how this aspect of the discipline was obscured during the mid-twentieth century. She will argue that this erasure, echoing a similar omission in constitutional law and theory, has critically weakened political science's capacity to recognize, theorize, and address the enduring "boomerang effects" of empire within the contemporary United States.

More information available at https://www.ou.edu/.../2025-lecture---maggie-blackhawk