Education

Ph.D. Sociology (McGill University)

M.A. Political Science (Columbia University)

B.A. Political Science (University of California, Berkeley)

Teaching

• 'Refugees and Humanitarianism' (Honours)
• Sociology 2A: 'Experiencing social inequalities' (Undergraduate)

Research

As a political and comparative historical sociologist, my research seeks to understand the political subjectivities that inhere to experiences of racism and ethnic / cultural or political exclusion in connection with modern nationbuilding. I explore  how the political subject and political subjectivities are constituted and with what consequences, paying particular attention to state and political strategies and inequalities, nation-building nationalism and racism.

Select Publications

Books

(forthcoming) The Americanization Moment: Nation, Race, Civil Society

(forthcoming, Riga et al. 2020) Young Refugees and Forced Displacement: Navigating Everyday Life in Beirut (Routledge)

(forthcoming) J. Kennedy and L. Riga. Nation-Builders: How American Ideas, Practices and Powers Shaped East Central Europe

2012 [2014, paperback] The Bolsheviks and the Russian Empire New York: Cambridge University Press

Select articles / chapters

(forthcoming) 'America's left behind? Populist nationalism, white interiorities and the racialisation of rage' (Review Essay) Nations and Nationalism

2020. L. Riga, J. Langer, A. Dakessian. 'Theorizing Refugeedom: Becoming Young Political Subjects in Beirut' Theory and Society

2019. 'How Homogenous Need America be? Nation, Race and Civility' in F. Duina (ed) Hallsian Perspectives on Nation and States, Powers and Civility University of Toronto Press

2016. 'Ethnicity, class and the social sources of U.S. exceptionalism' in Ralph Schroeder (ed) Global Powers: Mann’s Anatomy of the 20th Century and Beyond Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

2016. L. Riga and J.A. Hall. 'Jewish Conditions, Theories of Nationalism: Cartographical Notes' Nations and Nationalism 22(2): 371-390

2015. 'Ernest Gellner and the Land of the Soviets' Special Issue of Thesis Eleven 128(1): 100-112

2012. L. Riga and J. Kennedy. ''Putting Cruelty First': War Crimes as Human Rights in US Policy in Bosnia and Herzegovina' Sociology 46(5): 861-75

2009. L. Riga and J. Kennedy. 'Tolerant majorities, loyal minorities and 'ethnic reversals': constructing minority rights at Versailles 1919' Nations and Nationalism 15(3): 461-482

2008/9. 'The Ethnic Roots of Class Universalism: Rethinking the 'Russian' Revolutionary Elite' American Journal of Sociology 114(3): 649-705. Winner of 2009 Honorable Mention Award for Best Article in Comparative Historical Sociology, American Sociological Association

If you are interested in being supervised by Liliana Riga, please see the links below for more information: