Nathaniel Shils
Visiting Lecturer in Political Science
I study and teach about the politics of self-determination. This work engages with several thematically defined fields: nationalism and ethnic politics, peace and conflict studies, and settler colonialism and indigenous politics. In short, I try to understand how nationally and ethnically identifying collectives contest the meanings, practices, and institutions of self-determination. I am particularly concerned with questions about decolonization, democracy, and justice in places with histories of colonization, territorial dispossession, and the movement of human populations.
Although these interests motivate wide-ranging comparative and global inquiry, my regional specialization is the Middle East and North Africa. Most of my current research, writing, and public engagement is concerned with contemporary Israeli and Palestinian politics.