Please join us for a conference organized by the Andrew Gagarin Center for Civil Society and Human Rights of St. Petersburg State University, the Bard College Center for Civic Engagement, and the Harriman Institute at Columbia University.
Recent developments in electoral politics throughout the world tend to be associated with the victory of populism or the "new right." These newly-popular politicians and parties (Trump, Putin, Front National, Basic Finns, Alternative for Germany, etc.) usually have a dominant ideology, even if it is eclectic and hybrid. The traditional name of this ideology is "conservatism." It argues for exclusive and identitarian nationalism, a higher role for family and church, authoritarian structures of power, the need to defend against subversives—the rest is dependent on national tradition. Its more pejorative analogon, going back to the counter-revolutionary resistance to the French Revolution, is "reactionism."
How did this ideology evolve in the late 20th-early 21st century? What are its main principles? What makes it attractive? What classes/groups does it represent? How can one argue against it/for it? Is an ideological analysis still valid at all? These and other questions will be at the core of discussion with special focus on conservatism in contemporary Russia (where it has in fact become a ruling ideology).
Tuesday, February 12th
State University of New York Global Center
Global Classroom
116 East 55th St.
2:30–4:00 p.m. Conservatism Pro et Contra
Moderator: Samantha Hill, Bard College
Artemy Magun, European University at St. Petersburg
Ideological Hybridity in the North
Roger Berkowitz, Bard College
Public Education: The Challenge of Educational Authority in a World Without Authority
David Ost, Hobart and William Smith Colleges
Normalizing Fascism, and Why Many Workers Go Along
4:00-4:15 p.m. Coffee Break
4:15–6:00 p.m. Comparative Conservatism II
Moderator: Jonathan Becker, Bard College
Hadas Aron, New York University
Transformative Populism: A Central European Comparison
Szabolcs Pogonyi, Central European University
Nationalist Populism in Central Europe
Camille Robcis, Columbia University
Populism and National Reproduction in the French Gay Marriage Debates
Boris Vormann, Bard College Berlin [via video-feed]
Failed Promises, True Grievances: Comparing Trumpism across the Atlantic
6:00-6:15 p.m. Coffee Break
6:15–8:00 p.m. Roundtable: Conservatism and Populism in Europe and Beyond
Moderator: Malia Du Mont, Bard College
Ian Buruma, Bard College
Walter Russell Mead, Bard College
Adam Shatz, Bard College
Allison Stanger, Middlebury College
