Talk

BFA Visual & Critical Studies and the SVA Honors Program present Frances Fox Piven—sociologist, activist, one of the “nine most dangerous people in the world” (Glenn Beck) and author of the definitive analyses of social movements and the barriers to voting in the United States—to analyze the 2022 midterm elections. Since 2016, American politics have produced more than a few shocks. Frances Fox Piven will, with her characteristic intelligence, dive into what especially the Congressional midterm elections of 2022 mean for the nation as a whole. How did the Democrats fare in an election many expect may go poorly for them? How did the New York governor's race get so close? What is the balance of forces and the likely legislative agenda in the House and the Senate? How strong is Trump’s influence, and that of the claim that the 2020 election was stolen, over the Republican Party? What was voter participation like? How did things turn out in statehouses all over the country? How much did the legislative record of the last two years decide the results of the election versus longer-term trends in American society? What does the election bode for issues especially urgent for today’s students—climate change, student debt, jobs and wages, racial justice, healthcare and more? And more broadly, How is American democracy faring? What are the forces arrayed for and against democracy and how do we accurately gauge their relative strengths? What are the sources of democratic decline and revival? What can ordinary people do to achieve a better world? Is there a growing potential for American fascism? There are few better guides to interpret what the results of this latest contest mean in light of the larger shifts of history and the ideals of democratic living. Join BFA Visual & Critical Studies and the SVA Honors Program for this virtual talk. Frances Fox Piven, Professor Emerita of Politics at CUNY, has been among the most incisive, humane and engaged voices on the left for decades in the struggle for voter rights, welfare rights, working people’s rights and social reform. She is the co-founder of the National Welfare Rights Organization and the author of Challenging Authority: How Ordinary People Change America, Poor People’s Movements, Regulating the Poor and Why Americans Don’t Vote.