30468 - Interrogating the Relationship between Politics and Culture

Description

Political polarization in the United States has reached its zenith, with some suggesting that differences between political parties are so deeply embedded that easy ways out of the current political crisis are unclear. Are these differences easily reduced to culture? What do we mean when we say the words "political culture"? And how might understanding politics and culture by means of looking at these issues in analytically different ways contribute to meaningful solutions? This panel brings together five papers that explore issues of politics and culture in the U.S. and abroad as a means of helping us think about and answer these questions. Hsieh explores how the culture war is constructed through the production of media frames connected to pronoun policy and gender curricula,
affordable housing, and immigration policies in Canada. Liu examines the complex relationship between the social status, extreme political viewpoints, audience engagement on social media. Smilde and Perez explore tensions between liberalism and academic freedom among socialist activist academics in Venezuela. Choi and Atac challenge some of the philosophical underpinnings of world culture theory and point to some surprising alternative mechanisms that generate public trust in science globally. Mische and colleagues bring the issue of temporality into the discussing by examining the relational and cultural dynamics of transnational ensembles engaged in collective deliberations about the future since the 1990s.

Sub Unit

• Political Culture

Presider

• Samantha Agarwal, CUNY

Individual Presentations

• Framing the Culture War: Media Ideology and News Genre across Morality Policies in Canada - Yi-Cheng Hsieh, McGill University

• The Amplification of Extremity: How Status Moderates Polarization and Engagement - Yuanhao (Colin) Liu, Johns Hopkins University; Anjalie Field, Johns Hopkins University

• Ambivalent Liberalism: Socialist Students and Academic Freedom in Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution - David A. Smilde, Tulane University; Hugo Perez, Biblioteca Pública de León

• Is Science a World Culture? Restricted Actorhood and Public Trust in Science - Jungsik Choi, Pennsylvania State University; Ibrahim Enes Atac, Pennsylvania State University

• Ensemble Interventions: The Duality of Networks and Futures in Public Interest Scenario Work - Ann Mische, University of Notre Dame; Fabian D. Maldonado, University of Notre Dame; Zhemin Huang, University of Notre Dame; Quinlen Schachle, University of Notre Dame

Discussant

• Thomas Davidson, Rutgers University-New Brunswick

Session Organizer

• Joseph A. Harris, Boston University