The rising temperature of controversies surrounding such issues as “cancel culture,” “cultural Marxism,” and “woke-ism” are arguably just the latest instance of the much longer history of socio-cultural divides that occasionally erupt into a full-blown “culture war.” Or this is at least one way of making sense of the emerging cracks that seem to be deepening into crevasses in the cultural-political landscape of many societies in both the Western and non-Western world. This interdisciplinary colloquium will bring together scholars from history and neighbouring disciplines to discuss the issue of “culture war” as both a concept and a phenomenon across time and space.
We have three principal aims: to make advances in understanding the conceptualization of culture wars; to better understand the drivers of culture wars by analyzing the role of nationalism, class, and religion in the history of culture wars; and to analyze the role of historical memory in contemporary culture wars.
