Professor Neil Gross of the UBC Department of Sociology delivers an STS colloquium talk entitled “Why Are Professors Liberal and Why Do Conservatives Care?” Thursday, September 20, 5:00-6:30 in Buchanan Tower 1197.
In this talk I will show how studying the political sympathies of professors and their critics can shed light not only on academic life but on American politics, where the modern conservative movement was built in no small part around opposition to the “liberal elite” in higher education. This divide between academic liberals and nonacademic conservatives has wide-ranging significance, for example by making it even more difficult to reach accord on issues as diverse as climate change, immigration, and foreign policy.
The STS series is supported by the UBC Situating Science Node.