Live Webinar with Dr. Stephen McKenna: Political Rhetoric and Mimetic Trust

Join the RavenCast for a live and free webinar this Thursday at 1:00 Central for a conversation with Dr. Stephen McKenna, Associate Professor and Chair of Media Studies at The Catholic University of America. Steve is also Director of the Rhetoric Program at the University and he is the organizer for the upcoming Colloquium on Violence and Religion, July 11-14, held at The Catholic University of America. Steve will also be a speaker at the Raven Foundation’s 10^th anniversary celebration in Chicago – a workshop and theatre event titled “Hard Times for Truth.”*

During the RavenCast, we’ll talk with Stephen about the current political climate and how mimetic theory can help us understand the notion of “trust.” In the book, Living in an Age of Mistrust, Stephen writes that many Americans claim that trust has eroded recently, especially since the election of 2016. But he asks,

Was the former state of ostensible trust authentic? Or was it somehow illusory, perhaps a kind of social order based on sublimated violence, structural injustice, or scapegoating masquerading as trust? … I arrive at this suspicion from a mimetic perspective—that is, through a view of trust informed by the work of the French-American scholar René Girard.

Join us live on Thursday at 1:00 Central for this free webinar with your comments and question as Stephen and I discuss political rhetoric and how mimetic theory provides hope for developing authentic trust.

*Register for this special event by clicking here.

You can follow Steve on Twitter and on Facebook.

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