Margaret Cerullo

Professor Emerita of Sociology
Hampshire College Professor Margaret Cerullo
Contact Margaret

Margaret Cerullo
413.549.4600

Margaret Cerullo has a B.A. in philosophy from the University of Pennsylvania, a B.Phil. in politics from Oxford, and an M.A. in sociology from Brandeis University.

Her areas of interest are social and political theory, including feminist theory and queer theory, sociology of culture, and social movements.

Recent and Upcoming Courses

  • Almost 30 years ago, the Zapatistas, a revolutionary indigenous movement, rose in revolt in Chiapas against the Mexican state. Surfacing the same day that NAFTA went into effect-January 1, 1994, they announced a different vision of Mexico's future. On July 1, 2018, Andres Manuel Lopez Obrador [AMLO] swept to power in the first election of a Leftist president since Mexico's "transition to democracy" in 2000. Today, these two poles of resistance are at odds, as the Zapatistas argue that the capitalist hydra, the "monster without a country" continues to rule despite who has been elected. This course will concentrate on the actions and writings of the Zapatistas. At a moment when most of Mexico is banking on a profound change through capture of the state, focusing on the Zapatistas enables us consider the relevance and value of a radical movement that instead has opted for autonomy, an alternative form of social and political organization that draws its strength from internal participatory and direct democracy. Keywords:Mexico, indigenous politics, revolution, social movements, neoliberalism

  • This course will be organized around the following themes: 1. Intersectionality of systems of racialized violence in the US: Immigration control and domestic policing; mass incarceration and immigrant detention; 2. Global mobility as intrinsic to the restructuring of contemporary capitalism; therefore, studying "global migrations" is a critical vantage point for understanding contemporary capitalism, including questions of why do migrants leave their homes? And where do they (choose to) go? 3. A critical knowledge of migration governmentality, ie, the ways which people in motion are governed and resist; the power to regulate, regiment, control, and channel, human mobility; and multiple resistances 4. Interrogation of key concepts: citizenship, sovereignty, borders, nation-state, statelessness, belonging. Key Words: Migration, borders, refugees, nation-state