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Hate crimes. Misinformation and conspiracy theories. Foiled white-supremacist plots. The signs of growing far-right extremism are all around us, and communities around the globe are struggling to understand how so many people are being radicalized and why they are increasingly attracted to violent movements. Cynthia Miller-Idriss shows how tomorrow’s far-right nationalists are being recruited in surprising places, from college campuses and mixed martial arts gyms to clothing stores, online gaming chat rooms, and YouTube cooking channels. She demonstrates how young people on the margins of our communities are targeted in these settings, and how the path to radicalization is a nuanced process of moving in and out of far-right scenes throughout adolescence and adulthood. Most importantly, she offers ideas about the role that all of us – from academics to parents to TV presenters – can work together to halt the march of extremism in the US, Europe, and around the world.
This virtual event is co-sponsored by the Department of Sociology.

Dr. Cynthia Miller-Idriss is a professor at the American University in Washington, DC, where she directs the Polarization and Extremism Research and Innovation Lab (PERIL) in the Center for University Excellence (CUE). Dr. Miller-Idriss has testified before the U.S. Congress and regularly briefs policy, security, education and intelligence agencies in the U.S., the United Nations, and other countries on trends in domestic violent extremism and strategies for prevention and disengagement.

She appears regularly in the media as an expert source and political commentator, including recent appearances on CNN with Fareed Zakaria, PBS News Hour, MSNBC Hardball with Chris Matthews, The Today Show, and Good Morning America as well as in global media outlets in over a dozen countries. She is also a regular columnist for MSNBC. Her most recent book is Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right (Princeton University Press, 2020).

Please use discount code CMID to get 30% off of Cynthia's book!

Link to paperback: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691222943/hate-in-the-h…

Link to hardcover: https://press.princeton.edu/books/hardcover/9780691203836/hate-in-the-h…

Talk by Anna Stirr

Gokul Joshi (1930-1961) was a radical progressive poet and singer who was born in poverty and lived an itinerant life in Nepal and India in the 1940s and 50s, performing his songs and poetry and organizing workers and peasants against their exploiters wherever he went. He was an exceptionally talented exponent of the tradition of extemporaneous poetry and song in folk poetic meters, which at the time was strongly associated with the lower classes and disparaged by elites. Those elites who were beginning to broaden their outlook, like the poet Laxmiprasad Devkota, recognized in Joshi a talent rivalling their own, and many tried to get him into national politics. Yet Joshi had no patience for intellectual society, employment, political institutions, or the householder life, and preferred direct political action and the life of the road. Because of his ascetic-like lifestyle, his rejection of institutions, and the suppression of his works by his rivals, the details of his life are somewhat of a mystery and his works have been hard to find for decades. This has allowed a mythology to grow up around the figure of Gokul Joshi: the “true people’s singer,” a modernist ascetic dedicating his life to improving the lot of the people through poetry and song. In this presentation I look at how stories of Gokul Joshi’s life have influenced the careers of subsequent radical progressive performers, and how the idea of the “true people’s singer” has developed, in light of masculine traditions of Hindu asceticism, communist New Man theory, and changing political-economic conditions in Nepal. I address how the idea of the “true people’s singer” may have contributed to a constrained recognition of performers whose contributions did not fit that mold. I argue that Gokul Joshi may have created the role of the folk-style people’s singer in the drama of Nepali progressive politics, but that others now have the opportunity to expand it to newer ways of being revolutionary.

Dr. Stirr is Associate Professor in Asian Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. Anna’s research focuses on South Asia, particularly on Nepal and the Himalayan region. She is currently working on two projects that deal with love, intimacy, and politics in Nepal. The first looks at improvised dohori question-answer songs as culturally intimate, gendered expressions of ideas of nation and heritage, within a cycle of migration and media circulation that spans the globe. The second chronicles the history of Nepal’s politically oppositional “progressive song” from the 1960s to the present, with a focus on ideas of love, development, and communist thought as interrelated ways of imagining a better future. Articles from these projects have appeared in various journals and edited volumes. Anna also maintains an active research interest in the relationship between music, religion, politics and public culture in South Asia and the Himalayas. Along with teaching and researching about music, Anna is also active as a performer. After a bachelor’s degree in western classical flute performance, she has studied Hindustani classical bansuri flute with Steve Gorn and Jeevan Ale, and has learned the folk style of bansuri performance through musical interaction with many Nepali performers during her fieldwork. As a singer, she has studied the Hindustani classical tradition with Prabhu Raj Dhakal in Nepal and Ustad Mehboob Nadeem in London, and she learned Nepali folk and dohori song as she learned the flute styles, in the informal oral tradition. Her formal instruction in Nepali folk music has been with Khadga Bahadur Budha Magar on the madal drum, and she believes that knowledge of percussion provides a firm foundation for a broader grasp of any musical style. She is working on compiling and translating the Nepali folk music teaching materials created by her teachers as well as the late musicologist Subi Shah.

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports college graduates conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Applications are due in the fall; students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year.

United States citizens in any field of study are eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The migration studies minor is a university-wide, interdisciplinary undergraduate minor that prepares students to understand the historical and contemporary contexts and factors that drive international migration and shape migrant experiences around the globe. This minor draws on the rich course offerings found across the humanities and social sciences at Cornell, and is designed to draw students outside of their major fields and to extend their knowledge beyond a single country.

Contact: migration-minor@einaudi.cornell.edu,

Is the Einaudi Center's International Relations minor for you? Here's a chance to find out. Graduates go on to successful careers in fields like international law, economics, agriculture, trade, finance, journalism, education, and government service.

Contact: irm@einaudi.cornell.edu; https://einaudi.cornell.edu/academics/international-relations-minor

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program provides full funding for graduate and professional students conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Open to U.S. citizens only.

The Fulbright-Hays Doctoral Dissertation Research Abroad Program supports doctoral students conducting research in modern languages or area studies for six to 12 months. Open to U.S. citizens and permanent residents of the United States. Travel to Western European countries is not eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The Fulbright U.S. Student Program supports college graduates conducting research or teaching in any field in more than 150 countries. Applications are due in the fall; students who wish to begin the program immediately after graduation are encouraged to start the process in their junior year.

United States citizens in any field of study are eligible.

Contact: fulbright@einaudi.cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/fulbright-us-student-program

The LACS summer research grant provides funding for in-country research costs for graduate pre-dissertation work in Latin America or the Caribbean. (The grant does not cover international airfare; students should also apply for an Einaudi Center Travel Grant for airfare.) LACS will offer up to three research grants to qualified graduate students who need to conduct field research over the summer of 2022. Grant amounts may vary from $500 to $1,500. The Graduate Minor in Latin American Studies graduate minor in Latin American (and Caribbean) studies allows students to acquire in-depth knowledge of the region, which will enhance their expertise for future research and professional advancement. The main requirement is to have a Latin American studies field faculty member as a member of a student’s committee.

Contact: lacs@cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/latin-american-and-caribbean-studi…

Want to learn a language this summer? Learn about Foreign Language and Area Studies fellowships and Critical Language Scholarships, which provide fully funded opportunities for Cornell undergraduate and graduate students to study South and Southeast Asian languages in the summer, and even in the academic year.

The Latin American Studies Minor is an undergraduate minor across disciplines that will allow students to explore the history, culture, government, politics, economy and languages of Latin America and the Caribbean. Qualifying courses can be found in almost every college. LACS is happy to offer engaged and/or research internships in Ecuador for summer 2022.

Contact: lacs@cornell.edu, https://einaudi.cornell.edu/programs/latin-american-and-caribbean-studi…