When Angry Words Become Violent Actions
Violent language — even language that only gestures toward violence — creates its own effects and its own momentum, which it cannot always control. In February 1909, a strange new…
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David Barnes
8 posts
Going back somewhere: nostalgia and the radical right
The electorate are engaged at some level in a fictive transaction, where we know that what we intend to buy is indeed a counterfeit. It is, it seems, a good…
Pests, Invaders and Infestations: The Radical Right’s Dehumanization Of Immigrants
The anti-immigrant rhetoric we’re seeing in Europe and from President Trump is not only dehumanizing, it has a dangerous resonance in history. In April this year, Christian Schilcher, a local…
The Narrative of European Civilization within Radical Right Discourse
The idea of European civilisation is repeatedly evoked by a range of different actors within radical right movements in the West. Paradoxically, whilst much of the European radical right is…
From The Plantation To The Caravan: America’s History Of White Nationalism
The false anxiety that whiteness is under siege fueled the rise of Trump, but it isn’t new. You can trace white supremacist culture throughout American history. In the context of…
The Transformation of the Northern League
The trajectory of Italy’s Northern League party is a case study of the complex ways in which perceptions of regional, national and ethnic identity operates in the contemporary politics of…
Eugenics: White Nationalists Continue To Turn To The False Theory Of Genetic Supremacy
As white supremacist ideologies proliferate globally, an analysis of the racist pseudoscience that fuels their beliefs Last May, British journalist and conservative commentator Toby Young attended what he called a…
The Fascist in the Classroom: Teaching Pound, Race and Radical Right Politics
I teach modern literature, and I try and teach it with an eye to the political and social environments out of which it emerges. Two years ago, I introduced some…