Guest Lecture Volker Depkat (Universität Regensburg)
Although he is ostentatiously cultivating a political rhetoric of rupture and novelty, Donald Trump did not come out of the blue. Contrary to what he suggests, he is not a “creation ex nihilo” but has rather grown out of traditions of political populism originating in the Early Republic and especially in Jacksonian America of the 1830s. Andrew Jackson, seventh President of the United States, unleashed the populist energies inscribed into American democracy by fashioning himself into the champion of the common man and creating a new style of populist politics that democratized the American republic beyond the Founding Fathers’ wildest dreams. To understand Andrew Jackson and his policies of the common man, one has to go all the way back to the American Revolution and the social struggles between the colonial elites and the other members of the ‘”deferential society.” Against this backdrop, the lecture will reflect on the birth of American populism in the Early Republic as the result of a dialectical process driven by struggles over restricting and expanding democratic participation in America’s democracy that began as early as the American Revolution.
Volker Depkat is a trained historian and Professor of American Studies at the University of Regensburg. His research interests include the history of North America from the colonial era to the present as perceived from a continental perspective; the history of European-American relations; biography and autobiography; visual culture studies in transatlantic contexts; and the history of federalism through a transatlantic lens. He is currently working on a book on “American Exceptionalism.” Among his latest major publications are: Geschichte der USA (2016); Religion and Politics: Transnational Historical Approaches (ed. with Jürgen Martschukat, 2013); Visual Cultures—Transatlantic Perspectives (ed. with Meike Zwingenberger, 2012); Geschichte Nordamerikas: Eine Einführung (2008).
The event is free and open to the public.
This lecture is organized by the Department of American Studies.
Department of American Studies Graz
Institut für Amerikanistik
Attemsgasse 25/II
A-8010 Graz
Tel. +43/316/380-2465
amerikanistik(at)uni-graz.at