Steve King Archives - Public Seminar

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Gillette’s New Ad, Rep. Steve King, and Cursive’s Decline

Past Present Episode 163

January 22, 2019 • by Natalia Mehlman Petrzela, Nicole Hemmer and Neil J. Young

Here are some links and references mentioned during this week’s show: Gillette released a new ad taking aim at “toxic masculinity.” Natalia recommended historian Gail Bederman’s book Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Race and Gender in the United States, 1880-1917 and a Twitter thread she compiled of relevant historical images. Neil referred to his HuffPost piece on the campaign’s ...

Gillette’s New Ad, Rep. Steve King, and Cursive’s Decline

Steve King’s American Exceptionalism and its Ties to the “Slaves were Immigrants, too” Thesis

I don’t want to spend much time on King’s comments themselves, but let’s note here the way that “American civilization” is equated with “Western civilization”. Let’s also note that other civilizations are inferior to this civilization, precisely because other civilizations “produce very little freedom,” while “our” superior civilization produces more. ...