PUBLIC SOCIOLOGY FORUM, 7-9p.m., November 6, Barrows 402.
Fear Itself: The New Deal and the Origins of Our Time
Ira Katznelson, Ruggles Professor of Political Science and History at Columbia University will present his new and magisterial book, Fear Itself, with responses from Berkeley’s sociology faculty – Dylan Riley, Loïc Wacquant and Margaret Weir
Fear Itself has caused a stir in both academic circles and public media for its recasting of the meaning and legacy of the New Deal and how we can (re)understand the present. For Katznelson US liberal democracy, with all its warts, was sustained only through the genius of three compromises: with foreign dictatorships, with racism, and with Cold War militarism. At the heart of these compromises lies the enduring (im)balance between the US’s two faces: procedural or formal democracy and a missionary or garrison state.
Katznelson’s book is the culmination of 40 years of scholarship on: (1) urban racial orders in the US and Britain (Black Men, White Cities, 1973); (2) the specificity of US class (de)formation (City Trenches, 1981, Schooling for All, written with Margaret Weir, 1985; Working Class Formation - a comparative collection on 19th century US and Europe, written with Aristide Zolberg and others, 1986); (3) liberalism’s relation to fascism and communism (Liberalism’s Crooked Circle: Letters to Adam Michnik, 1996, Desolation and Enlightenment, 2003); (4) the racial character of the US state (When Affirmative Action was White, 2005). His books have won much acclaim and many awards.
At once sociologist, political scientist and historian, Ira Katznelson is a scholar of rare vision and commitment. He is President of the Social Science Research Council, and was President of the American Political Science Association, founder of the journal Politics and Society, Renovator and Dean of the Graduate Faculty of the New School for Social Research, President of the Social Science History Association, legendary teacher and inveterate collaborator.
Dylan Rileyis the author of Civic Foundations of Fascism in Europe (2010)
Loïc Wacquantis the author of Prisons of Poverty (1999),Body and Soul (2000); Urban Outcasts (2009), Punishing the Poor (2009),
Margaret Weiris the author of Schooling for All (with Ira Katznelson, 1985); Politics and Jobs (1992), The Social Divide (ed.,1998)