Furious Minds: The making of the MAGA New Right

Donald Trump is not a big thinker, but his 2016 presidential victory presented a grand opportunity for people who are, and it set off a radicalization and reconfiguration of the American conservative intellectual world. 

In Furious Minds, Laura Field chronicles the rise of the New Right—the network of academics, public intellectuals, and influencers who provide ideological fuel to Trumpism, and to Vice President JD Vance. Perhaps above all else, the MAGA New Right is engaged in a vast culture war against modern liberal pluralism. 

Field will discuss what inspired her to write the book and provide an overview of the ideological radicalization that is shaping contemporary politics in American and around the world.

About the speaker

Dr Laura K Field is an associate with the Illiberalism Studies Program at George Washington University, a nonresident fellow at the Brookings Institution, and visiting scholar in residence at American University. 

A political theorist by training, she holds a PhD in government from the University of Texas at Austin, and has held faculty positions at Rhodes College in Memphis, Georgetown University, and American University in Washington, DC. 

In addition to her academic work she has written for The New Republic, Politico, The Bulwark, Le Monde, The New York Times and The Atlantic. Her book Furious Minds: The Making of the MAGA New Right is now out with Princeton University Press. She lives in Washington, DC.

Practicalities

This event is co-hosted by the University Church, the Faculty of Divinity, and Dr Marietta van der Tol (Landecker Lecturer)