During his first term, Trump promised to put ‘America first.’ In recent weeks, administration officials have promised to restore ‘Western Civilization.’ In this talk, Gorski explains when and why this shift occurred, what it tells us about the political ambitions of the MAGA elite, and what we do and don’t know about the evolving relationship between religion and the far right in the US, Europe and the rest of the world.

Speaker

Philip Gorski is a cultural and historical sociologist with a strong interest in social theory and the philosophy of social science. The primary focus of his work is religion and politics in Western Europe and the United States. His historical research focuses on processes of social change. Amongst other things, he has written on state-formation, nationalism, revolution, and secularization. In recent years, he has also written on the complicated relationship between religion, secularism and democracy, with special attention to the influence of Christian nationalism on US politics. 

Gorski received his B.A. from Harvard College and his PhD from the University of California, Berkeley. He has held faculty appointments at the University of Wisconsin, Madison and Yale University and has been a visiting professor at Universities of Amsterdam, Beijing, Göttingen, Heidelberg, Konstanz, Shanghai and Yale-NUS College, as well as the ÉHESS.