Social Resilience, Hope, and Recognition in the New Gilded Age

Wednesday, March, 24 2020, 1-2:00pm

Dr. Michèle Lamont, Department of Sociology and African and African-American Studies, Harvard University

In the context of COVID, growing inequality and political polarization, Dr. Lamont is writing a book that diagnoses some of the current challenges facing Americans and offers a way forward. Her work draws from survey data and interviews with boomers, Gen Zs, and leading “agents of change,” who are producing new narratives in entertainment, comedy, advocacy, religion, art, journalism, impact investing, and other fields of activity. Neoliberal scripts of self, based on criteria emphatically centered on material success, competitiveness, individualism, and self-reliance, are increasingly associated with poor mental health across classes. Agents of change offer alternatives: they are promoting narratives of hope that emphasize inclusion, diversity, sustainability and authenticity – as part of an increasingly salient “politic of recognition” that broadens cultural citizenship and thus affects exclusion and inequality. Dr. Lamont aims to understand how their influence takes shape through “recognition chains” that mobilize philanthropy, new social movements, social media, and more.

Watch a recording of the seminar here.