Celtic and Scottish Studies Research Seminar series:
9 December 2016, 1.10 pm, Room 1.17, Dugald Stewart Building
Dr Michael Newton, University of North Carolina: Blinders on the Left, Klans on the Right: Scottish and Celtic Studies in Trump’s America
One of President-elect Donald Trump’s strongest bases is the (so-called) ‘alt-right,’ white supremacists who commonly invoke Celtic heritage in their messaging. Hatemongers are able to occupy a gap left open by the American academy’s narrow fixation on the critical lenses of race, gender and sexual orientation, and the underdevelopment of Celtic Studies. This underlines the urgent need for intellectual engagement with the historical realities of Celtic peoples in the Americas and for the cultivation of a radical and progressive vision of the heritage of a large segment of the American population now categorised as “white.”