Conference on Supremacism and Authoritarianism

In recent years, the threat from antidemocratic movements, ideologies, and politics around the globe has gained increased attention from scholars and researchers. Prominent fields of research addressing these challenges include far-right, radicalization, and extremism studies—yet these threats to democracy and justice also stem from the political center and from groups and individuals that appear on the left.

The Institute for Research on Male Supremacism (IRMS) is hosting a virtual conference (taking place on Zoom) in December 2022 on Thursday the 1st, Friday the 2nd, and Monday the 5th starting at 7am Pacific Standard Time each day. IRMS conferences cultivates an international community of participants; this year, conference registrants will be able to request a special link and password to view the majority of the panels asynchronously for two weeks following the event. In addition to the following LIVE schedule, sessions not available for full asynchronous rewatch will be replayed at additional times to accommodate different time zones.

If the low-income registration rate presents a financial hardship, email contact@theirms.org to request a comped registration (you do not need to explain why you are requesting this). In the wake of the Club Q attack, IRMS is also offering the option of full comped registrations to trans and queer researchers, journalists, and activists interested in accessing our sessions on dangerous speech and other topics.

IRMS understands supremacism, in its multiple forms, as a pervasive belief system supporting dominance and oppression that is at the historical and contemporary core of society. This understanding is informed by feminism, intersectionality, reproductive justice, gender and race/ethnicity studies, and social movement studies, as well as incorporating far-right, hate, radicalization, and extremism studies. The conference will be relevant to all of these disciplines.

This event is hosted by the Institute for Research on Male Supremacism and cosponsored by Political Research Associates.

Schedule Overview

ASYNCHRONOUS VIEWINGS: You must be registered for the conference to request access to the session recordings.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

7AM-8:45AM PST / 16:00-17:45 CET: Paper Panel: Supremacism and Nationalism: Cases in Germany, Turkey, and Trinidad and Tobago

9AM-10:45AM PST / 18:00-19:45 CET: Invited Session: Mental and Emotional Health Tolls in Research on Supremacism and Extremism

11AM-1PM PST / 20:00-22:00 CET: Digital Security Training with Praveen Singha, Equality Labs

1PM-2PM PST / 22:00-23:00 CET: HAPPY HOUR

AVAILABLE ON REQUEST: Paper Panel: Supremacism and Nationalism *adjusted from replay schedule to available on request

AVAILABLE ON REQUEST: Mental and Emotional Health Tolls

REPLAY:7PM-9PM PST: Digital Security Training

Friday, December 2, 2022

7AM-8:45AM PT / 16:00-17:45 CET: Paper Panel: Masculinity Performance in the Far-Right

9AM-11AM PT / 18:00-20:00 CET: Education Is the Cornerstone of Democracy: Keynote Panel with Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, GLSEN ; Chris Harley, SIECUS/EducateUS; and Dr. Jaymie Campbell, Advocates for Youth

11AM-12PM / 20:00-21:00 CET: Post-Keynote Social Hour

12PM-1:45PM PT / 21:00-23:00 CET: Invited Session: Understandings of Supremacism: Dangerous Speech, Banality, and Similarities Across Ideological and Geographical Contexts

REPLAY: 5PM-7PM PST: Keynote: Education Is the Cornerstone of Democracy

7PM-9PM PST: Invited Session: Understandings of Supremacism

AVAILABLE ON REQUEST: Masculinity Performance in the Far-Right

Monday, December 5, 2022

7AM-8:45AM PT / 16:00-17:45 CET: Paper Panel: Femininity, (Anti-)Feminism, and Far-Right Politics

9AM-10:45AM PT / 18:00-19:45 CET: Paper Panel: Spoken like a Supremacist: Rhetoric and Images Online

11AM-12:45PM PT / 20:00-21:45 CET: Paper Panel: Crossing Borders and Far-Right Feelings

1PM-2PM PT / 22:00-23:00 CET: Closing Remarks and Social Hour

REPLAY: 7PM-9PM PST: Femininity, (Anti-)Feminism, and Far-Right Politics

AVAILABLE ON REQUEST: Spoken like a Supremacist; Crossing Borders and Far-Right Feelings

Detailed Schedule

For more about the paper panels, proposal abstracts are available to view here.

Thursday, December 1, 2022

7AM-8:45AM PT: Paper Panel: Supremacism and Nationalism: Cases in Germany, Turkey, and Trinidad and Tobago

Chair: Anne Hendrixson, Challenging Population Control, Collective Power for Reproductive Justice

Panelist: Sophie Schmalenberger, Aarhus University, "‘Germany. But normal.’: The Alternative für Deutschland and the Re-articulation of the National Normal"

Panelist: Scott Timcke, Research ICT Africa, "A Population to be Governed: Revolts, Nationalism and Social Inequality in Trinidad and Tobago"

Panelist: Basak Gemici, University of Michigan, "Authoritarian Populism: Co-Starring the Spectacle of Male Supremacy in Public Spaces"

9AM-10:45AM PT: Invited Session: Mental and Emotional Health Tolls in Research on Supremacism and Extremism

Chair: Meredith Pruden, Kennesaw State

Elizabeth Pearson, Royal Holloway University of London and REASSURE

Alexandria C. Onuoha, Suffolk University

Blu Buchanan, University of North Carolina, Asheville

We are pleased in this session to have Elizabeth Pearson represent the REASSURE (Researcher Security, Safety and Resilience) team, presenting findings from their forthcoming VOX-Pol report assessing the issues faced by researchers. Pearson will be joined on this panel by IRMS Fellow Blu Buchanan and IRMS mentee and board member Alexandria C. Onuoha. Buchanan, also a senior fellow with the Center for Applied Transgender Studies (CATS), has written on trans antagonism in the academy and authored such articles as “We Major: Historical Black Trans Feminism Fights Back.” Onuoha, who works in the Youth Equity & Sexuality Lab, will discuss her research on the impact on Black girls and women's experiences from supremacist and far-right actors, and brings a solutions-focus with her creative contributions in psychology, dance, and culture.

11AM-1PM PT: Digital Security Training with Praveen Singha, Equality Labs

1PM-2PM PT: HAPPY HOUR (Discussion topic: experiences with health, safety, and security in research on supremacism, extremism, radicalization, and the far-right)

Friday, December 2, 2022

7AM-8:45AM PT: Paper Panel: Masculinity Performance in the Far-Right

Chair: Pekka M. Kolehmainen, University of Turku

Panelist: Bruna Silveira de Oliveira, Federal University of Minas Gerais and University of California Irvine, and Gracila Vilaça, Federal University of Minas Gerais and Bielefeld University, "Masculinism and Bolsonarism: Brazilian performances and discourses in the context of far-right rising"

Panelist: Matteo Botto, University of Genoa, "Am I good-looking enough?". Masculinity performances in looksmaxing communities"

Panelist: Austin Zinkle, University of Kentucky, "Before the Internet: Trolling, Dress-Up, and Homosocial Communities of Hate within 1960s Radical Right Wing Youth Groups"

Panelist: Mario Futh, University of Leipzig, "The male gaze on women in the election campaigns of right-wing conservative parties using the example of Saxony 2019"

9AM-11AM PT: Education Is the Cornerstone of Democracy: Keynote Panel with Melanie Willingham-Jaggers, GLSEN ; Chris Harley, SIECUS/EducateUS; and Dr. Jaymie Campbell, Advocates for Youth. Chaired by Alex DiBranco.

Preventing and countering violent extremism (P/CVE) and related fields have tended toward late-stage individualized interventions that are high-cost/low-yield, such as the model of “formers” initiatives. IRMS seeks to redirect these fields—and the resources they command—toward broad-based cultural interventions. This keynote panel invites speakers to discuss the significance and opportunities for K-12 education in sustaining democracy and humanization. Decades of right-wing and supremacist attacks in this sphere, from targeting sex ed to anti-CRT, from Heritage Foundation to Proud Boys, demonstrates their awareness of the power social justice in this education holds. The featured speakers represent organizations connecting research to action in advancing social change, and will discuss racial justice in sex ed, trans-affirming education, and more.

11AM-12PM: Post-Keynote Social Hour (discussion topic: connecting research to action)

12PM-1:45PM PT: Invited Session: Understandings of Supremacism: Dangerous Speech, Banality, and Similarities Across Ideological and Geographical Contexts

Chair: Rae Jereza, PERIL, American University

Cathy Buerger, Dangerous Speech Project, Director of Research

Hanah Stiverson, University of Michigan, Doctoral Candidate

Zenaib Farokhi, University of Toronto, Professor

Monday, December 5, 2022:

7AM-8:45AM PT: Paper Panel: Femininity, (Anti-)Feminism, and Far-Right Politics

Chair: Reed Van Schenck, University of Pittsburgh

Panelist: Alisha Grech, University of Toronto, ""Wumben? Wimpund? Woomud?” White (Supremacist) Feminism on its home-TERF"

Panelist: Aishik Saha, Jadavpur University, "Hindutva as Fragile Masculinity and the Sexualisation of Muslim Women"

Panelist: Eviane Leidig, University of Tilburg, "Branding hate: Far-right female influencers in India and North America"

Panelist: Tamta Gelashvili, University of Oslo, "One of the Boys: on Researching the Far Right as a Woman" (co-author: Audrey Gagnon, Center for Research on Extremism (C-REX), University of Oslo)

9AM-10:45AM PT: Paper Panel: Spoken like a Supremacist: Rhetoric and Images Online

Chair: Eviane Leidig, University of Tilburg

Panelist: Reed Van Schenck, University of Pittsburgh, "The Optics War: The Rhetorical Reconstitution of Supremacist Networks after “Unite the Right” in the United States"

Panelist: Pekka M. Kolehmainen, University of Turku, "PragerU and the Conceptual Language of Antifeminism and Male Supremacism"

Panelist: Gerardo Centeno García, Independent Scholar, "The influence of North American male supremacy pop culture on Hispanic video-essayists/influencers" (co-author: Gaston Bernardo Salazar Teran, Independent Scholar)

Panelist: Mariel Cooksey, "Why Are Gen Z Girls Attracted to the Tradwife Lifestyle?,” Canadian Institute for Far-Right Studies

11AM-12:45PM PT: Paper Panel: Crossing Borders and Far-Right Feelings

Chair: Scott Timcke, Research ICT

Panelist: Marina Lazetic, The Fletcher School, "Far Right in the Borderlands"

Panelist: Anne Hendrixson, Challenging Population Control, Collective Power for Reproductive Justice, "Resurgent white nativist and ecofascist demographic anxieties: White space-making populationism in the Age of Climate Change" (co-author: Rajani Bhatia, Associate Professor, Women’s Gender & Sexuality Studies, University at Albany)

Panelist: Joseph Keady, Independent Researcher, "It's About the Birthrates: Replacement Theory as Constitutive Rhetoric"

1PM-2PM PT: Closing Remarks and Social Hour