Description
Book SynopsisIn this volume, each chapter reflect on the phenomenon and concept of populism in relation to democracy and the humanities from the multiple vantage points of various disciplinary backgrounds: philosophy, history of ideas, media and communication, journalism, political science, gender studies, organization science, education theory, popular culture, and literary studies. While the study of populism seems to have become a subfield within political science, this topic has been rarely explored by scholars in the humanities. Rather than contribute to the already established area of populism studies in social and political sciences, our authors take a more open and exploratory stance through which they attempt to open up new fields and directions for inquiry from an interdisciplinary humanistic perspective.
Struggling with problems of relevance, impact, and visibility, the humanities have a special responsibility to address this topic, not only because it is relevant for their multidisciplinary domain, but also because the humanities stand for the values of thoughtfulness, in-depth reflection, critical thinking, weighty and thorough analysis. The humanities’ very existence constitutes a guaranty against what is usually described as populism.
Table of ContentsPART I. Populism and the Democratic Culture
1. Populism, a Silent Counterrevolution?, Ann-Cathrine Jungar
2. The Lost Art of Democratic Debate: Econocracy, Populism, and the Humanities, Henrik Bohlin
3. Is Another World Possible? George Orwell on Freedom and Totalitarian Thinking, Jari Ristiniemi
PART II. Populism and Social Change
4. Comparative Education: From a Humanistic Explanatory Reasoning to a Statistical Reasoning for Solving Societal Problems, Daniel Pettersson
5. Alternative Images of the University in an Era of Universities as Politicized Social Good and Rational Organizations, Signe Jernberg
6. Populism and masculinity, Sarah Ljungquist and Malena Granhall Lahiki
PART III. The New Media and Populist Communication
7. Populism in the Digital Logic, Jan Sjölund
8. Populism and the Politics of the Media Spectacle in the US: Borders, Invasion, Infection, Markus Heide
9. Hero, Supergrrl, Queen Moron and Brainwashed Puppet: Female Celebrity Politicians/Politicized Celebrities and the Hyper-Mediatized Public Sphere, Anna Edin
PART IV. Populism and the Public Imagination
10. The Case of the Lost Sobriety – Documentaries and Society in Sweden in the 21st Century, Per Vesterlund
11. Two Fictionalizations of American Populism: Edward Bellamy’s Looking Backward 2000-1887 and Sinclair Lewis’s It Can’t Happen Here, Iulian Cananau
