Description:

Presented by: Professor Brian T. Edwards

Friday, January 12
@ Congdon Shaffer Mansion (405 Church St. - Evanston)
6 p.m. - Program begins
7 p.m. - Reception to follow

This lecture argues that there is an intimate relationship between the technologies of the digital age, entertainment, and the resurgence of global populisms. The political rise of Donald Trump is a symptom of seismic changes in technology, media, entertainment, and geopolitics, but Trump has also profoundly altered the relationship between them. Propelled by satellite TV and social media, the global circulation of Trump’s rhetoric ruptured the divide between American popular culture and US politics, marking the postscript to the “American century.” In the age of Trump, the US political system itself became a horrible form of global entertainment.

Brian T. Edwards is Crown Professor in Middle East Studies, Professor of English and Comparative Literary Studies, and Director of the Middle East and North African Studies Program at Northwestern. His most recent book is After the American Century: The Ends of U.S. Culture in the Middle East (Columbia, 2016; paperback 2017).