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Events - 11.04.2017 - 00:00 

From Cicero to Donald Trump

The last few years have witnessed exceptional upheavals: the mass immigration initiative, Brexit and Donald Trump’s election to the presidency. How can these current developments be explained? To answer this question, History Professor Caspar Hirschi will be going as far back as antiquity – to Cicero – starting on 19 April 2017. The six-part lecture series will be part of the public programme.

12 April 2017. Only a few years ago academia, business and politics agreed that the time of the nation state was up, that in times of globalisation all important decisions must be made at an international level, that people were becoming more mobile and multicultural and that in time, citizens' ties to their nation would disappear. It now appears that the opposite has happened: Switzerland adopted the mass immigration initiative, the UK is saying goodbye to the European Union and the United States elected Donald Trump their 45th president.

To explain current developments, Prof. Dr. Caspar Hirschi's public lecture will go far back in history. First, Hirschi will deal with the patriots and populists of Roman antiquity. He will then explain how nationalism emerged at the time of the Renaissance, and will shed light on the nexus between nationalism and populism in the French Revolution. Finally, he will reveal similarities and differences between the era of the World Wars and developments of the most recent past in Europe and the US.

The lectures will take place at the University of St.Gallen in Room 09-110 on Wednesdays at 6.15 p.m. Dates: 19 April, 26 April, 3 May, 10 May, 17 May and 24 May 2017.

Image: Fotolia / Renta Sedmkov

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