Strangers in Their Own Land: A Polymathic Inquiry on Empathy and Politics in the Trump Era

Mar 7 2019
When: 5:00 PM - 6:30 PM
Where: Harman Academy
Event Type: Special Events and Series
RSVP Required
RSVP Code: Code: 12345
RSVP By: Fri, 08/20/2021

Event Details

After the 2016 election, pundits and commentators questioned aloud: How did Trump win the rural, white poor? Why did they (seemingly) vote against their own economic interests? To many, the answer was anger, fueled by unemployment, identity politics, and bigotry. To others, it was due to a campaign of misinformation decades in the making, formed by an intense, right-wing "fake news" media bubble. But either way, it was difficult, perhaps impossible, for those on the outside to understand those within these communities--yet it is our ethical responsibility to aim for this, as both polymaths and citizens.

 

This barrier to mutual understanding is what Arlie Hochschild, one of the most significant sociologists of her generation, termed the "empathy wall." Hochschild spent the five years prior to 2016 immersed in the community around Lake Charles, Louisiana, a Tea Party stronghold; she was looking to understand the cultural and economic forces that, over time, have influenced the conviction in conservatism amongst many poor, white communities. Hochschild chronicled this experience and her distinct interpretations in Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, which was named in the Best Books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews and became a finalist for the 2016 National Book Award. 

 

In partnership with the USC Annenberg Center on Communication Leadership & Policy, the Harman Academy is excited to welcome Arlie Hochschild to USC for a polymathic conversation on the election of Donald Trump.  We invite students and faculty of all political persuasions to come and engage on the clear relevance of her themes to our lives as scholars and citizens. Joining her will be Professor Tara McPherson, Director of the Harman Academy and leading scholar in the cultural and political dimensions of media (as well as a native Louisianan!), for a conversation starting with the 2016 election, with the promise of looking through perspectives drastically different from one's own. 

Speaker Information

Speaker

Dr. Arlie Russell Hochschild

Arlie Russell Hochschild has long focused on the human emotions which underlie moral beliefs, practices, and social life generally. She is the author of nine books including, most recently, Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right, a finalist for the National Book Award, and The Second Shift, The Managed Heart, and The Time Bind. Hochschild graduated from Swarthmore College in 1962 and then earned her M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley; as a graduate student, Hochschild was greatly inspired by the writings of Erving Goffman and C. Wright Mills. She is now Professor emerita of Sociology at UC Berkeley.

Dr. Tara McPherson

Tara McPherson is Chair and Professor of Cinema and Media Studies at the University of Southern California’s School of Cinematic Arts, and Director of the Sidney Harman Academy for Polymathic Studies. She is a core faculty member of the IMAP program, USC’s innovative practice based-Ph.D., and also an affiliated faculty member in the American Studies and Ethnicity Department. Her research engages the cultural dimensions of media, including the intersection of gender, race, affect and place. She has a particular interest in digital media: here, her research focuses on the digital humanities, early software histories, gender, and race, as well as upon the development of new tools and paradigms for digital publishing, learning, and authorship. Her book Reconstructing Dixie: Race, Gender and Nostalgia in the Imagined South (Duke UP: 2003) received the 2004 John G. Cawelti Award for the outstanding book published on American Culture, among other acknowledgements. Her most recent book, Feminist in a Software Lab, was published by Harvard University Press in 2018.