This talk explores an unconventional form in which knowledge on Mexico's "war on drug trafficking" is produced and circulates, and the kind of symptomatic reading that it performs. By analyzing two such instances—a journalist's testimony on her experience of drug-war violence before a federal government committee and a protest of relatives of the war's victims—I examine how this form of shadow knowledge operates through simultaneous concealment and revelation, illuminating key contradictions at the core of the drug war—the large-scale militarized combat of drug trafficking organizations that began in 2006. While this conflict's structuring logic follows the principles of the US security state—including the designation of an external enemy that threatens the national community and must be fought militarily—its unfolding within the Mexican territory reveals the impossibility of such a designation. Instead, as I will explore in this talk, those discursive articulations outline the symptoms of a new kind of state formation that has emerged in Mexico's drug war: an entity that makes itself felt through the traces of its extralegal violence. Those traces, I will argue, point to two kinds of indistinction: first, that between the state and its criminal enemy—el narco—and second, that between such an enemy and the national community the state was supposed to protect.

Agnes Mondragón-Celis is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at the University of Rochester. Her research explores the forms of knowledge production and circulation that emerge in contexts of generalized violence and opacity. She analyzes the psychosocial and performative effects of these forms of mediation, including how they sustain or challenge political authority. Her work has been published in American Anthropologist, Environment and Planning C: Politics and Space, and Anthropology News.

The Critical Language Scholarship (CLS) Program provides fully funded immersive summer programs for U.S. undergraduate and graduate students to learn languages of strategic importance to the United States’ national security, economic prosperity, and engagement with the world. Each summer, over 500 American students enrolled at colleges and universities across the United States spend approximately eight weeks studying one of a dozen languages either overseas or virtually. Participants gain the equivalent of one year of language study, as the CLS Program maximizes language and cultural instruction in an intensive environment.

Can't attend? Email programs@einaudi.cornell.edu for more information.

National security discourses have profoundly permeated the film industry in the United States for decades. Through direct and indirect intervention in major film productions, US security institutions (including the Pentagon, DEA, CIA, and FBI) have pushed for what Matthew Alford and Tom Secker call “national security cinema,” with hundreds of films complacent with a transnational militarist agenda promoting state violence in the global south. For this presentation I will analyze the films Sicario (Denis Villeneuve, 2015) and Emilia Pérez (Jacques Audiard, 2024) as symptomatic not only of securitarian propaganda criminalizing racialized populations but also erasing the devasting effects of the US-backed militarized antidrug policy in Mexico. I will ultimately consider the normalization of the militarization and its technopolitical surveillance culture (following the work of scholars Camilla Fojas, Huub Dijstelbloem, and Iván Chaar López) through the “drug wars” narrative at the US-Mexico border region.

Oswaldo Zavala is Professor of contemporary Latin American literature and culture at the College of Staten Island and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY). He is the author of La modernidad insufrible. Roberto Bolaño en los límites de la literatura latinoamericana contemporánea (2015), Volver a la modernidad. Genealogías de la literatura mexicana de fin de siglo (2017), Drug Cartels Do Not Exist. Narcotrafficking in US and Mexican Culture (2018), and La guerra en las palabras. Una historia intelectual del “narco” (1975-2020) (2022). He co-edited, with Viviane Mahieux, Tierras de nadie: el norte en la narrativa mexicana contemporánea (2012); with José Ramón Ruisánchez, Materias dispuestas: Juan Villoro ante la crítica (2011); and with Magdalena Perkowska, Tiranas ficciones. Poética y política de la escritura en la obra de Horacio Castellanos Moya (2018). He has published more than fifty articles on contemporary Latin American narrative, the U.S.-Mexico border, and the link between violence, culture and late capitalism.

The Laidlaw Scholars Leadership and Research Program promotes ethical leadership and international research around the world—starting with the passionate leaders and learners found on campuses like Cornell. Open to first- and second-year students, the two-year Laidlaw program provides generous support to carry out internationally focused research, develop leadership skills, engage with community projects overseas, and become part of a global network of like-minded scholars from twenty universities worldwide.

At this session, we'll share more information about the program, including Cornell's cohort-based intercultural community-engaged learning summer experience in Ecuador, and tips for writing a successful application. Applications are due January 12, 2026.

Applicants are also strongly encouraged to attend a Q+A webinar about the summer experience in Ecuador. Q+A webinars are scheduled for November 5 and November 6.

Register here. Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

The Laidlaw Scholars Leadership and Research Program promotes ethical leadership and international research around the world—starting with the passionate leaders and learners found on campuses like Cornell. Open to first- and second-year students, the two-year Laidlaw program provides generous support to carry out internationally focused research, develop leadership skills, engage with community projects overseas, and become part of a global network of like-minded scholars from twenty universities worldwide.

At this session, we'll share more information about the program, including Cornell's cohort-based intercultural community-engaged learning summer experience in Ecuador, and tips for writing a successful application. Applications are due January 12, 2026.

Applicants are also strongly encouraged to attend a Q+A webinar about the summer experience in Ecuador. Q+A webinars are scheduled for November 5 and November 6.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Go global in summer 2026! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Go global in summer 2026! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Go global in summer 2026! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications are open now.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.

Go global in summer 2026! Global Internships give you valuable international work experience in fields spanning global development, climate and sustainability, international relations, communication, business, governance, and more.

Applications will open in the fall.

Can’t attend? Contact programs@einaudi.cornell.edu.

***

The Mario Einaudi Center for International Studies hosts info sessions for graduate and for undergraduate students to learn more about funding opportunities, international travel, research, and internships. View the full calendar of fall semester sessions.