American Hate: Terror in America

(3 Credit Hours) · Undergraduate

Incidents of hate-driven political violence and domestic terrorism have increased in the United States in recent years and are the highest they have been in decades. Non-partisan studies show this upsurge in violence has been driven primarily by white-supremacist, anti-Muslim, and antigovernment extremism. What are the causes of this upsurge in extremism and political violence? What is its impact upon contemporary society, religion, and politics? What do the categories and practices of peacebuilding have to offer for purposes of constructive and transformational responses to such violence and its causes? This course explores answers to these questions. It examines how the causes and conditions of the upsurge in extremist politics and political violence relate to racism, nationalism, xenophobia, and the political weaponizing of American religion. We will explore such factors as the role of ethno-nationalism in the wide-spread Evangelical Christian embrace of QAnon conspiracy theories and political organizing, the merging of Catholic and Orthodox Christian "traditionalism" with political authoritarianism (e.g. especially as modeled by contemporary Hungary, Poland, and Russia), the so-called "Alt-Right" organizing and activism (e.g. the "Unite the Right" marches and rallies in Charlottesville), the January 6, 2021 attack on the U.S. Capital, the relation of the so-called "Gun Lobby" to increased militance of political rhetoric and organizing, militia organizing and participation in political violence and terrorism, and invocations of a looming "civil war" as the inevitable result of deep and persistent political polarization in the U.S. Readings will include Janelle Wong's Immigrants, Evangelicals, and Politics in an Era of Demographic Change; Kristen Kobes Du Mez's From Jesus to John Wayne; Cynthia Miller-Idriss' Hate in the Homeland; Barbara Walters' How Civil Wars Start; Sarah Riccardi-Swartz's Between Heaven and Russia; and Ryan Busse's Gun Fight, among others.