Carol Rifelj Lecture Series - Culture War Politics: How the United States and Europe got "Woke"

Erik Bleich, Political Science   Culture War Politics: How the United States and Europe got “Woke” Over the past decade, the culture wars have become a core component of political struggles in the United States and in many European countries. This presentation traces the trajectory of woke as a symbol of this political transformation, chronicling the rise of this word—and creative variations like “wokeness,” “wokery,” and “le wokisme.” It tracks the evolution from a positive call within the Black American community to remain awake to social and racial injustices to its weaponized use by the right to stigmatize the left. Connections between countries in the internet era help drive the spread of culture war dynamics across borders, though national differences shape the way a term like woke resonates in places like Great Britain, the Netherlands, and France. Using evidence from mainstream media, social media, and Google searches and illustrating the process with real-world examples shows just how central culture war politics have become in liberal democracies in our era.