Ugly Freedoms

Discussing her new book Ugly Freedoms (Duke University Press, 2022), Elisabeth Anker argues that while freedom has been championed as the United States’ highest ideal, it has been used to legitimate practices of domination and oppression, including white supremacy, environmental destruction, settler colonialism, neoliberal exploitation, and misogyny. As an escape from this problem of “ugly freedom,” Anker offers an account of its inverse, to be found in disparaged practices and spaces of freedom standardly dismissed as futile, compromised, or demeaning.

Professor Anker is Associate Professor of American Studies and Political Science at the George Washington University, where she is also Director of the Film Studies Program. Her work lies at the intersection of political theory, cultural studies, feminist theory, and affect studies.  She is the author of the multiple prize-winning book Orgies of Feeling: Melodrama and the Politics of Freedom (Duke University Press 2014) and the brand new book Ugly Freedoms (Duke University Press, 2022). She has published articles in prestigious journals including Political Theory, Social Research, Theory & Event, American Literary History, Politics and Gender, Contemporary Political Theory, and the Journal of Communication.