Contesting the Far Right: A Psychoanalytic and Feminist Critical Theory Approach

The Department of Political Science Speakers Series presents:

Claudia Leeb (Washington State University)

Contesting the Far Right:

A Psychoanalytic and Feminist Critical Theory Approach

Friday, April 19

12:30-2:00pm

Hall Building, Room H-1220

Why have so many people responded to the insecurity, exploitation, alienation, and isolation of precarity capitalism by supporting the far right?  Leeb examines right-wing recruitment tactics in the United States and Austria, where people discontented with the status quo have turned to far-right parties and movements that further cement capitalism’s adverse effects. Leeb contends that Freudian psychoanalytic theory and early Frankfurt School Critical Theory provide analytical tools to explain this apparent contradiction in psychological terms and also suggest ways to resist the far right and counter the psychological appeal of its propaganda techniques.

Claudia Leeb is Associate Professor in the School of Politics, Philosophy, and Public Affairs at Washington State University