Is Democracy Under

The intensity of the question “Is democracy under attack?” seems to be consuming our moment. Academic books such as Barbara Walter’s How Civil Wars Start and Levitsky and Ziblatt’s How Democracies Die are now best-sellers. CNN airs special programs on the topic, such as Trumping Democracy. MSNBC poses the question nightly.

Ralph Cintron will put on the table all possible motives behind the question Is Democracy Under Attack? This talk will be framed through Kenneth Burke’s “a way of seeing is also a way of not seeing”—which can be extended to: a way of knowing is also a way of not knowing. 

Cintron holds a joint appointment in English and the Latino and Latin American Studies Program at the University of Illinois at Chicago. His research and teaching interests are in rhetorical studies; ethnography, particularly urban ethnography; urban theory; theories of transnationalism; political theory, particularly the anthropology of democracy; and social theory. His most recent book is Democracy as Fetish, published in 2020 by Penn State University Press.