Authoritarian Populism and the Cultural Roots of Fascism in Britain

When

08/05/2018    
3:00 pm - 5:00 pm

Where

Arts C133
University of Sussex, Brighton

Event Type

Authoritarian Populism and the Cultural Roots of Fascism in Britain
Tuesday 8 May 15:00 until 17:00
Arts C333
Speaker: Dr Gillian Evans, University of Manchester
Part of the series: Anthropology seminar series
Inspired by the conjunctural analysis (Jefferson 2014), established by Stuart Hall, and colleagues (Hall et al 1978; 2013), as central to the explanation of emerging political-cultural formations, this paper revisits the concept of authoritarian populism and situates Brexit in Britain as the successful outcome of a counter-hegemonic project. Understood in terms of the political craftwork associated with the manufacture of consent (Gramsci 1971; Chomsky & Herman; 1988), the paper reconsiders the Leave campaign as dramatic art, a performance cleverly designed to act out a moral crisis (Cohen 1972; Elliott Cooper A. el al. 2014) sufficient to destabilise the authority of government and throw it off centre.