A New State Form in Mexico

We invite you to join us for an Iberian Night with renowned scholar Claudio Lomnitz to discuss the ideas and work behind his new book Sovereignty and Extortion: A New State Form in Mexico.

Preparing for the Evening

Attached you should find four readings: Two chapters—1 and 5—from the new book Sovereignty and Extortion: A New State Form in Mexico, a recent interview Lomnitz conducted on this topic in the New York Review of Books, and a review by Lomnitz (also published in the NYRB) of Marcela Turati’s book on the San Fernando massacre. The latter may be optional reading, although it helps to understand something of what motivated the formation of the Social Study of Disappearance Lab that Lomnitz set up at Columbia, which he will be talking about with us.

About our Guest Speaker

Claudio Lomnitz is Campbell Family Professor of Anthropology at Columbia University and the author of several books, including Nuestra América: My Family in the Vertigo of Translation, The Return of Comrade Ricardo Flores Magón, and Death and the Idea of Mexico.