Award-winning professor Maggie Blackhawk, NYU Law, presents the 2025 Rothbaum Lecture "Colonial Administration: Empire, Civilization, and the Making of Political Science" in a series of three lectures:

Tues. Oct. 14: The Blueprint for American Empire: Indians, Civilization, and American Political Development
Wed. Oct. 15: The Science of American Empire: Colonial Administration and the Science of Government
Thurs. Oct. 16: The Erasure of American Empire: The Cold War and the “Boomerang” of Empire

Blackhawk (Fond du Lac Band of Lake Superior Ojibwe) will trace the formation of the modern discipline of political science with empire at its foundation - particularly, the field of "colonial administration” - and examine how this aspect of the discipline was obscured during the mid-twentieth century. She will argue that this erasure, echoing a similar omission in constitutional law and theory, has critically weakened political science's capacity to recognize, theorize, and address the enduring "boomerang effects" of empire within the contemporary United States.

The daily lectures are free and open to the public.