This talk examines how US empire operates as a topological formation that projects its national security apparatus through mediated arrangements of power, mobile technologies, and blurred genres of rule that link far-flung sites in intimate and often indeterminate ways. Drawing on over a decade of research conducted in Palestine on the embedding of Washington’s counterterrorism regime into monetary transactions and aid flows inbound to the Palestinians, this talk presents a different analytic of the US war state – one that realizes its destructive effects not only through spectacular modalities of violence and warfare, but increasingly so, through a quieter, temporally stretched process of constriction that progressively erodes conditions of livability through forced disconnection and isolation.

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Lisa Bhungalia is an Assistant Professor of Geography and International Studies at the University of Wisconsin-Madison and core faculty member of the Middle East Studies Program. Their research examines evolving modalities of late-modern war, empire and transnational linkages between the US and Southwest Asian and North African region. Their first book, Elastic Empire: Refashioning War through Aid in Palestine, published by Stanford University Press in 2024, traces the deepening entanglements of aid, law, and war in Palestine with attention to the surveillance and policing regimes produced through the embedding of counterterrorism laws and infrastructures into civilian aid flows. They are also currently developing new research on the embedding of sanctions regimes into global circuits of finance. They are the recipient of the Middle East Studies Association 2024 Albert Hourani Book Award, the Middle East Monitor 2024 Palestine Academic Book Award, and the American Association of Geographers 2025 Glenda Laws Award, and their research has been supported by the American Council of Learned Societies, National Science Foundation, and Palestinian American Research Center, among other bodies.

If there is anything we can do to make this event accessible to you, please contact us at is-michigan@umich.edu. Please be aware that advance notice is necessary as some accommodations may require more time for the university to arrange.