Intellectual Property Law

Coming to UVa on April 30: "The Fall and Rise of American Liberalism"

By Siva Vaidhyanathan

Department of Media Studies at the University of Virginia Presents:

The Fall & Rise of American Liberalism
Media, Race, Religion & Bruce Springsteen

WEDNESDAY, April 30, 2008
12 Noon - 1:30pm (book signing to follow)
Harrison Institute Auditorium
Small Special Collections Library at the University of Virginia

American 20th-century liberalism may be poised for a comeback. Attacks from aggressive conservatives and trenchant criticism from the multicultural left have rendered consensus liberalism a shell of a political movement and a label that liberal candidates tend to shun. But is all this changing? This panel discussion will ask the following questions: What aspects of 20th-century American liberalism are inappropriate for the 21st century? Is the United States a fundamentally conservative nation? Can our fractured and hyperactive media environment foster a sense of common purpose or tolerate the deliberate temperament of liberalism? Can liberalism thrive in an increasingly diverse United States - i.e., can it contain multitudes?

Panelists:

* Angela Dillard is an associate professor of Afro-American and African Studies at the University of Michigan and author of Faith in the City: Preaching Radical Social Change in Detroit (University of Michigan Press, 2007) and Guess Who's Coming to Dinner Now?: Multicultural Conservatism in America (NYU Press, 2001).

* Eric Alterman is a Distinguished Professor of English and Journalism at Brooklyn College and the CUNY Graduate School of Journalism. He is the media columnist for The Nation and the author of seven books, most recently Why We're Liberals: A Political Handbook for Post-Bush America (Viking, 2008).

* Todd Gitlin, professor of journalism and sociology and chair of the Ph. D. program in communications at Columbia University, is a sociologist, cultural analyst, and award-winning novelist. He is the author of 12 books, most recently The Bulldozer and the Big Tent: Blind Republicans, Lame Democrats, and the Recovery of American Ideals (John Wiley and Sons, 2007).

Moderated by Bruce A. Williams, professor of Media Studies at the University of Virginia and the co-author (with Michael X. Delli Carpini) of the forthcoming book, And the Walls Came Tumbling Down: The Eroding Boundaries Between News and Entertainment and What They Mean for Mediated Politics in The 21st Century

Click here for a PDF poster for the event.

Full post as published by SIVACRACY .NET on April 14, 2008 (boomark / email).