On January 6, 2021, a group of Trump supporters besieged and breached the US Capitol. The media reaction was swift: different media companies variably called the besiegers insurrectionists, a mob, rioters, citizens, and patriots. The events of January 6 call us to consider how language, media, and law interact to (de)legitimize assemblies of people. It also raises urgent questions about how responses to assemblies are raced, classed, gendered, and always already political. This graduate student roundtable will consider how language, media, and the law interact to channel responses to human assemblies across three different contexts: the English Reformation, eighteenth-century London, and Washington, DC, in the 1990s.

Panelists:

Taylor Sims, PhD Candidate, History, University of Michigan
Katie Laplant, PhD Candidate, History, University of Michigan
Nicole Navarro, PhD Candidate, History, University of Michigan
Katherine French (chair), J. Frederick Hoffman Professor of History, University of Michigan

Free and open to the public. This is a remote event and will take place online via Zoom. Registration information forthcoming.

This event is part of the Friday Series of the Eisenberg Institute for Historical Studies. It is made possible by a generous contribution from Kenneth and Frances Aftel Eisenberg.