A Wednesday afternoon discussion of the pros and cons of the “Cancel Culture” movement will wind up this year’s Free Speech Week programming hosted by University of Wisconsin- Stout’s Menard Center for the Study of Institutions and Innovation (MCSII).
The online program, from 4:30 to 5:30 p.m., will feature New York City author J.C. Hallman and James “Duke” Pesta, professor of English at UW Oshkosh. Invitations to the event, on the Microsoft Teams platform, are available from MCSII Director Tim Shiell, who will host the discussion.
Cancel culture is the practice of withdrawing support for companies and removing public statues if they are connected to something considered objectionable or offensive.
Free Speech Week programs earlier this week featured a discussion of the pros and cons of banning hate speech and the relationship between academic freedom and free speech.
M. Alison Kibler, a professor of American studies and women’s gender and sexuality studies at Franklin and Marshall College in Lancaster, PA, spoke Monday on the topic of banning hate speech. Brian Huffman, UW-River Falls professor in the College of Business and Economics, and John K. Wilson, one of the nation’s leading commentators on academic freedom, discussed that topic and its connection to freedom of speech on Tuesday.
Importance of Free Speech Week
“Free Speech Week is important because freedom of expression is one of the very most fundamental rights in a democracy,” Shiell said. “It enables us to express and hear differing viewpoints, to participate in government and criticize government, and so much more.
“It is especially important now because free speech has not been as much in the news and as hotly contested in so many ways since the 1950s McCarthy era,” he added.
Hallman, whose nonfiction works combine memoir, history,journalism and travelogue, received a 2010 McKnight Artist Fellowship in fiction and a 2013 fellowship from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation in the general nonfiction category. He has written “In Utopia,” an exploration of the history of utopian literature in the context of visits to six modern utopias in various stages of realization.
“Hallman has defended cancel culture and participated, for example, in movements to remove statues of objectionable historical figures while Pesta has critiqued cancel culture in numerous online outlets,” Shiell said.
This topic, like the others discussed on Monday and Tuesday, is a complicated one, Shiell said. Too often, he added, they are oversimplified into “us vs. them” situations.
Speakers debating cancel culture, for example, “often talk past each other because what counts as cancel culture is not well-defined, nor are the principles that support or oppose it,” Shiell said. “People tend to think about it emotionally and not consider relevant policies or principles or precedents.”
These topics are an excellent fit for the MSCII’s mission to promote the study and discussion of civil liberties, such as free speech, and their relationship to institutions and innovation, Shiell said.
The idea for Free Speech Week started after a survey found limited knowledge of what the First Amendment means, although people wanted more education on it.