Recent developments and protests in the US and more widely, have shown the reality of systemic racism and convergence of the mainstream and far right after a long period in which racism was deemed to be unacceptable and our societies 'post-racial'.
In this talk, Dr Aurelien Mondon and Dr Aaron Winter will look at the legitimisation and mainstreaming of racism and the far right through a variety of processes, such as the construction and racialisation of 'the people' or demos as white, 'populist hype', euphemisation and liberal tropes such as free speech.
They argue that this has not only made racism more acceptable, but emboldened racists, including the far right, once seen as the unacceptable face of what Mondon and Winter term 'illiberal racism'. In addition to examining this process and history, they will also discuss what we need to do as anti-racists to not only fight racism and the far right, but ensure democracy is itself progressive. They will focus the talk on the United States, but also draw from case studies on the UK and France from their book.
Members of the University of Cambridge are invited to log in via Raven to join this session in Zoom. Members of the public are invited to follow the livestream for the event, which will be featured on this webpage via the Department's YouTube channel. For reminders about the seminar series, please follow our Facebook event page.
Date: Tue 3 Nov 2020
Time: 12:30-2pm (GMT)
About the authors:
Aurelien Mondon is a senior lecturer at the University of Bath. He currently works on various project related to liberal and illiberal articulations of racism and right-wing populism, and their impact on liberal democracies.
Aaron Winter is a senior lecturer in Criminology and Criminal Justice in the School of Business and Law at the University of East London. He currently works on various project related to liberal and illiberal articulations of racism, the relationship between the far-right and mainstream, racism and terrorism, and hate crime.
