Culture and Expression, Spring 2020 WHAT THE HECK IS HAPPENING WITH DEMOCRACY? Faculty:
Humanities – Kozol, Krapp, Lotier, Pell, Robinson Pasupathi Social Sciences: Bogard, Cox, DeFreitas, Fazeli, Frisina, Perotti
As the United States heads into its quadrennial presidential election cycle, the future of democracy here as well as abroad seems cloudy at best. Press freedoms are challenged, election results are questioned, and most surprisingly, politicians are winning elections on platforms that aim to consolidate power in the hands of an executive rather than distributing it broadly across a system sustained by checks and balances. In this semester our goal will be to better prepare ourselves (faculty and students) for the challenges associated with the 2020 election cycle. We aim to think about what we mean by democracy. Toward that end, our first unit looks directly at democracy’s roots in Enlightenment ideas and its crystallization in the “American experiment.” We’ll also spend time reflecting on whether the U.S. experiment in a limited form of democracy can be sustained in the 21st century. In unit two, we will turn to a discussion of capitalism and its relationship to democratic practices. For example, we’ll reflect on the extent to which democracy and capitalism require one another. A lot? A little? Not at all? We’ll think together about capitalism’s role in generating innovation, but also in the creation of income and wealth inequality, and the impact such disparities are having on individuals and on democratic practices within the U.S as well as internationally. Our third unit will focus on the role that migration and displacement are playing in political discussions and crises domestically and globally. People are fleeing the only homes they’ve ever known because they feel they have no choice––acts that have a long history and pre-date the founding of the United States. Wars, famine, drought, economic collapse, and other factors abroad disrupt existing social structures in our own often-invoked “Nation of Immigrants.” These seem to be playing directly into the political and economic crises we are witnessing now. In unit four we examine the sources and consequences of the politicization of the natural sciences. By looking closely at discussions involving healthcare and climate change, we hope to come to a better understanding of how and why those issues have gone from being technical problems requiring attention by experts to weapons deployed by ideologues in the U.S. culture wars? Finally, we will end the semester with our fifth unit that looks past the ballot box toward other sources of power in popular and grassroots movements and organizations. Our goal here will be to end our semester by thinking together about the responsibilities of citizenship but also about the pathways open to each of us to play our role in the democratic process. In true C&E fashion we will be approaching each of these topics through the lenses of the different disciplines represented among our faculty. We’ll read works by theorists and empirical researchers in sociology, psychology, political science, economics and philosophy. Simultaneously, we’ll turn to artistic works in literature, music, painting, opera, film and more, to provide direct access to what it feels like to be living in and through this “crisis moment.”