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The McCourtney Institute for Democracy

Events

Events

Our events bring thought-provoking conversations about democracy to the Penn State community and beyond. All events are free and open to anyone. Professional recordings by C-NET will be posted to our YouTube channel following each event.

David Hogg

Monday, April 1, 7:00 p.m. EDT
HUB Alumni Hall

Thrust into the world of activism by the largest school shooting in American history, Parkland survivor David Hogg has become one of the most compelling voices of his generation. His call to “get over politics and get something done” challenges Americans to stand up, speak out and work to elect morally just leaders, regardless of party affiliation.

Passionate in his advocacy to end gun violence, Hogg’s mission of increasing voter participation, civic engagement and activism embraces a range of issues. He graduated from Harvard in 2023.

In this lecture, Hogg will discuss his new venture, Leaders We Deserve, which aims to help young people run for Congress and state legislatures. He founded the organization in 2023 with Kevin Lata, the campaign manger for Maxwell Frost, the first member of Gen Z elected to Congress in 2022.

Antjie Krog: 30 Years of Democracy in South Africa

Wednesday, April 10, 4:00 p.m. EDT
Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library
Co-Sponsored by the School of International Affairs

The McCourtney Institute for Democracy, in collaboration with our College of the Liberal Arts colleagues, will mark the 30th anniversary of South Africa’s first election open to all citizens in 1994. We believe it’s important to examine the evolution of democracy in South Africa as we consider the future of American democracy.

Antjie Krog, a South African writer, scholar, and activist, will present the keynote lecture in the series. She covered the post-Apartheid Truth and Reconciliation Commission and wrote the book Country of My Skull about her reflections on the process and the possibility for true reconciliation in South Africa. Krog is currently a faculty member at the University of the Western Cape. 

Postracial Fantasies and Zombies: On the Racist Apocalyptic Politics Devouring the World

2024 Center for Democratic Deliberation Kenneth Burke Lecture: Eric King Watts

Wednesday, April 17 4:00 p.m. EDT
Foster Auditorium, 102 Paterno Library or on Zoom

Postracial Fantasies and Zombies examines the ghostly and horrifying figure of the zombie across several historical contexts to examine how it functions as a mode of regenerating a fantasy involving its surveillance, containment, and destruction. Watts asserts that the zombie is a biotrope that gets repetitively deployed and enjoyed as a blackened biothreat body provoking rituals of securitization and weaponization. Beginning in the wake of the Haitian Revolution and 19th century pseudo-science, the book charts a course through the zombie’s appearance in early 20th century films through the post-civil rights and Vietnam eras to show how the zombie becomes a fixture in our 21st century postracial moment. Watts contends that each iteration of the genre produces the zombie as a hate object as a part of a fantasy involving the reclamation of white masculine sovereignty.

Eric King Watts is an associate professor of rhetorical studies at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. His research explores the manner in which public voice is invented, performed, consumed, and suppressed. In particular, Watts examines the diverse phenomena of African American public voice and its relation to the representation of the black body, the meanings of blackness, the shape of civic culture and community; voice and voicelessness are understood as being impacted by the rhetorical agency of the subject, the terms of one’s publicity, and the power relations that make up one’s various identities.