“The Conservative and Progressive Channels of Student Activism”
After the election of Donald Trump and the tumultuous protests rocking college campuses between 2015 and 2020, student activism became a center of attention in the media and political halls of power. Yet much of the discussion was sensationalistic and one-sided, drawing damning conclusions from extreme cases. In my forthcoming book, The Channels of Student Activism: How the Left and Right Are Winning (and Losing) in Campus Politics Today (University of Chicago Press, 2022), I and my co-author Jeffrey Kidder study how politically engaged college students from the left, right, and center are making sense of this particular moment in American history. Using a culturally informed organizational approach, we show how progressives are drawn inside their universities, by academic departments, multicultural centers and student affairs initiatives. Conservatives, on the other hand, function as an outside insurgency, supported by a rich ecosystem of donors, think tanks, and provocative groups. In this talk, I will describe the advantages and disadvantages of each of the two activism channels, and show how they affect college students’ political styles in college and career pathways after graduation.
Friday, March 18, 2022 | 1:15 p.m. | Social Sciences Building, Room 139| Zoom: https://duke.zoom.us/j/98028102486|
Lunch 11:30am – 1:00pm, Reuben-Cooke 268