Free course
Sovereignty: An Interdisciplinary Seminar
Who gets to define your body, your data, your land, your mind? A cross-disciplinary exploration of sovereignty as it is lived, contested, and reclaimed.
What you'll learn
This course traces the concept of sovereignty across philosophy, Indigenous cosmologies, feminist and anti-racist thought, cult psychology, digital rights, somatics, and ecology. Each module redefines sovereignty from the ground of a different discipline — then the connections between them become the real curriculum. You will encounter Foucault and Fanon alongside Leanne Betasamosake Simpson and Staci Haines; Westphalian state theory alongside Māori data governance; coercive control alongside emergent strategy. The course centers feminist, anti-racist, Indigenous, and decolonial sources throughout. A final works-cited module provides a curated reading list for going deeper in every direction.
Curriculum
Module 1 — Sovereignty Before and After the State
- The Westphalian inheritance — sovereignty as territorial controlreading · 12 min
- Foucault's biopower — sovereignty over life itselfreading · 10 min
- Agamben, Butler, Arendt — bare life, precarity, and collective powerreading · 14 min
- Module 1 Check-In — Philosophical Sovereigntyquiz · 8 min
Module 2 — Indigenous Cosmologies of Sovereignty
Module 3 — Cult Psychology and the Dismantling of Sovereign Selfhood
Module 4 — Digital and Data Sovereignty
Module 5 — Feminist Sovereignty: Body, Self-Definition, and Collective Care
- Bodily autonomy beyond liberal individualismreading · 16 min
- Module 5 Check-In — Feminist Sovereigntyquiz · 8 min
Module 6 — Anti-Racist and Decolonial Sovereignty
Module 7 — Sovereignty in Conflict, Consent, and Emergent Practice
- Consent theory and the sexual contract — Pateman, brown, Mingusreading · 16 min
- Module 7 Check-In — Conflict and Consentquiz · 8 min
Module 8 — Embodied and Somatic Sovereignty
- The body keeps the score — trauma, somatics, and the politics of healingreading · 18 min
- Module 8 Check-In — Embodied Sovereigntyquiz · 8 min
Module 9 — Ecological, Economic, and Linguistic Sovereignty
- More-than-human sovereignty — ecology, food, language, and the commonsreading · 16 min
- Module 9 Check-In — Extended Sovereigntiesquiz · 8 min
Module 10 — Works Cited and Further Reading
- Works cited — a reading list for going deeperreading · 10 min
Your instructor
Zen Lara
Systems thinker with a penchant for thinking about sovereignty through many lenses
Free, funded by supporters
There is no paywall on this course. If it helps you, you can choose to support it — that keeps it free for everyone else.