Behind the Headlines | Is there Still an American Dream?

Recorded October 29, 2020. The subject of countless songs, films,
novels and works of art, 'the American Dream' has been a defining
theme of the modern American ethos. As US election day approaches
in the midst of a global pandemic, climate catastrophe and
escalating racial tensions, we want to ask if this dream -- with
its emphasis on equality, opportunity and freedom -- has become a
nightmare. With the US now ranking as one of the most unequal G7
countries in the world, our panel of experts will explore this
topic from a range of social and cultural perspectives, and in
anticipation of a crucial and complicated American election day.
Speakers: Bernice Murphy is Associate Professor at the School of
English, Trinity College Dublin, where she lectures in popular
literature and specialises in the study of place and space in
American horror and gothic narratives. Her books include The Rural
Gothic in American Popular Culture (2013). Larycia Hawkins is a
scholar, professor of political science, and activist. Professor
Hawkins teaches and researches at the University of Virginia (UVA),
where she is jointly appointed in the departments of Politics and
Religious Studies. She is part of the UVA Democracy Initiative’s
Religion, Race & Democracy Lab. Her publications include Jesus
and Justice: The Moral Framing of the Black Agenda (2015). Nicholas
Johnson is an Associate Professor in Drama in Trinity’s School of
Creative Arts. He is a founding co-director of the Beckett Summer
School at TCD and a co-founder of the new Trinity Centre for
Beckett Studies. He publishes across several fields and has been a
regular media commentator on the US election landscape. Ed Pavlić
is Distinguished Research Professor of English and African American
Studies and affiliated faculty in Creative Writing at the
University of Georgia, Athens (GA). He is the author of 'Who Can
Afford to Improvise?': James Baldwin and Black Music, the Lyric and
the Listeners (2015). The Trinity Long Room Hub Behind the
Headlines series is supported by the John Pollard Foundation. Learn
more at: https://www.tcd.ie/trinitylongroomhub/