Ayten Gündoğdu
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Political Theory
Ayten Gündoğdu is an Associate Professor of Political Science at Barnard College. Her research lies at the intersection of modern and contemporary European political theory, the political thought of Hannah Arendt, critical human rights studies, and international political and legal theory.
Professor Gündoğdu's research aims to rethink key political concepts such as equality, rights, sovereignty, and personhood in light of the struggles of subjects relegated to the margins of politics and law. This goal is reflected in her book, Rightlessness in an Age of Rights (Oxford University Press, 2015), which offers a critical inquiry of human rights by engaging with the works of twentieth-century political theorist Hannah Arendt and by examining the contemporary rights struggles of asylum-seekers, refugees, and undocumented immigrants.
Professor Gündoğdu is currently at work on a new book that aims to understand the regime of impunity surrounding migrant deaths by foregrounding two key dimensions of this problem: racialized vulnerability to lethal violence at the borders of states and the complicity of law in the justification of this violence.
Professor Gündoğdu is the recipient of several awards and grants, including a membership at the Institute for Advanced Study (2024-2025), the Tow Professorship for Distinguished Scholars (2019-21), Heyman Center Fellowship from Columbia University (2018-19), Mellon Mid-Career Fellowship from the Whitney Humanities Center at Yale University (2017-18), and a postdoctoral fellowship from the Mahindra Humanities Center at Harvard University (2011-12).
- Ph.D., University of Minnesota, Twin Cities
- B.A., Bogazici University, Istanbul, Turkey
- Modern, contemporary, and continental political theory
- Political theory of Hannah Arendt
- Politics of migration and borders
- Racism and racial violence
- Critical approaches to law
- Human rights and humanitarianism
You can find selected syllabi on-line.
- POLS UN 1101 Political Theory
- POLS BC 3410 Colloquium on Human Rights in a Diverse World (Cross-listed by the Human Rights Program, Barnard College)
- POLS BC 3435 Colloquium on Law and Violence
- POLS W 3002 Human Rights and Immigration
- POLS UN 4150 Crisis and Critique: The Frankfurt School (Cross-listed by the Institute for Comparative Literature and Society, Columbia University)
- CPLS GR 8833 Law and Violence: Critical Perspectives (Cross-listed by the Department of Political Science, Columbia University)
- “Forced Disappearances: A Legal-Phenomenological Reinterpretation,” Conference on “Mapping Absence,” Stanford University (Stanford, CA, May 14-19, 2025).
- (co-authored with Çiğdem Çıdam) “Beyond Disobedience: Reclaiming Law in the Name of Political Resistance,” Law and Society Association (Chicago, IL, May 22-25, 2025).
- “‘Race and Bureaucracy’ at the Borders of Europe,” Commencement Panel at the 17th Annual Arendt Circle Conference, New York University (April 4, 2024).
- “Phenomenology at the Border,” Association for Political Theory (Union College, Schenectady, New York, October 12-14, 2023).
- “On the Lawful Lawlessness of Borders: Rethinking Extraterritorialization as a Technique of Racialized Governance,” Workshop on Borders, Territory, and Rights: Changing Legal Cartographies of Migration and Mobility, Goethe-Universität, Frankfurt-am-Main (June 30-July 1, 2022).
Publications
Rightlessness in an Age of Rights: Hannah Arendt and the Contemporary Struggles of Migrants (Oxford University Press, 2015) Link
- International Studies Association-Northeast, Yale H. Ferguson Award, 2016.
- International Studies Association, Theory Section, Book Award Competition, Honorable Mention, 2015.
- Included in the list of Choice “Outstanding Academic Titles” (January 2016).
(forthcoming) “A Critical Phenomenology of Racialized Vulnerability: Judith Butler and the Rodney King Trial,” American Political Science Review.
“From the Colony to the Border: Lawful Lawlessness of Racial Violence.” In Lawless Zones, Rightless Subjects: Migration, Asylum, and Shifting Borders, ed. Seyla Benhabib and Ayelet Shachar (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2025), pp. 175–191 (Open access).
“Animal Trouble: Arendt and the Question of Anthropocentrism,” Review of Politics 86, no. 4 (Fall 2024): 505–528 (Open access).
“Migration.” In The Routledge Handbook of Political Phenomenology, ed. Sophie Loidolt, Tobias Matzner, Steffen Herrmann, Nils Baratella, and Gerhard Thonhauser (Routledge, 2024), 423–433. Link
“Border Deaths as Forced Disappearances: Frantz Fanon and the Outlines of a Critical Phenomenology,” Puncta: Journal of Critical Phenomenology 5, no. 3 (2022): 12-41 (Open access)
“At the Margins of Personhood: Rethinking Law and Life Beyond the Impasses of Biopolitics,” Constellations: An International Journal of Critical and Democratic Theory 28, no. 4 (December 2021): 570-587 (Access online)
“Borders of Human Rights: Territorial Sovereignty and the Precarious Personhood of Migrants.” In Critical Perspectives on Human Rights, ed. Birgit Schippers (Rowman & Littlefield, 2018).
“On the Ambivalent Politics of Human Rights,” Journal of International Political Theory (October 2018). (Access online)
“Disagreeing with Rancière: Speech, Violence, and the Ambiguous Subjects of Politics,” Polity 49, no. 2 (April 2017): 188–219 (Access online).
“A Revolution in Rights: Reflections on the Democratic Invention of the Rights of Man,” Law, Culture and the Humanities 10, no. 3 (October 2014): 367-379 (Access online)
“Statelessness and the Right to Have Rights.” In Hannah Arendt: Key Concepts, ed. Patrick Hayden (Acumen Publishing, 2014) Link
“Potentialities of Human Rights: Agamben and the Narrative of Fated Necessity,” Contemporary Political Theory 11, no. 1 (February 2012): 2-22 (Access online)
For a longer version, see: “Potentialities of Second Nature: Agamben on Human Rights.” In Second Nature: Rethinking the Natural Through Politics, ed. Lida Maxwell, Laura Ephraim, and Crina Archer (Fordham University Press, 2013), pp. 104-126. Link
“‘Perplexities of the Rights of Man’: Arendt on the Aporias of Human Rights,” European Journal of Political Theory 11, no. 1 (January 2012): 4-24 (Access online)