Pollsters are wringing their hands because their predictions of the 2020 US election outcomes were so far off the mark—just as they did in the aftermath of the election of 2016. The landslides for the left did not materialize in 2020, and the polls in their hundreds misjudged the extent of support for conservative candidates and conservative ideas. Now, we are trying to understand the sentiment that worked up individuals enough to create a mob that rushed the Capitol on January 6, 2021.
Join us Thursday, March 25 at 5:30 p.m. for “People Power: The Work of Public Sentiment” via Zoom.
In her presentation, Professor Thalos will take up questions of how to conceptualize, and subsequently to measure, public sentiment. Is there such a thing as public opinion, or something worthy of the name, that stands still long enough to be susceptible of measurement? And if there is, what does it matter that we actually take its measure?
Registration is required in advance. After registering, you will receive a confirmation email containing the Zoom link and password. Please note, we will not have live captioning services available for this presentation. It will be recorded and posted, with captions, to our website afterwards.
Mariam Thalos, professor and head of the UT Department of Philosophy, joined the UT faculty in 2018. Her research focus is on foundational questions in the sciences, especially the physical, social, and decisional sciences, as well as on the relations among the sciences. She is the author of numerous articles and two books, Without Hierarchy: The Scale Freedom of the Universe (Oxford, 2013), and A Social Theory of Freedom (Routledge, 2016). She is a former fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities, the Institute of Advanced Studies of the Australian National University, the Tanner Humanities Center, the University of Sydney Center for Foundations of Science, and the Institute of Philosophy, University of London.
This presentation is part of the College Conversations: Allyship and Antiracism series, hosted by the UT College of Arts and Sciences.