Charlotte M. Canning – The Conversation

Chautauqua’s lectures and performances drew hundreds of people with their promise of self-transformation. L.E. Walker/New York Public Library

August 25, 2022

Chautauqua, where Salman Rushdie was attacked, has a long history of promoting free speech and learning for the public good

Charlotte M. Canning, The University of Texas at Austin

The Chautauqua movement symbolized progressive reformers’ hopes that public learning could create a healthy democracy.

Posters advertise the dramatization of Sinclair Lewis’ ‘It Can’t Happen Here.’ Wikimedia Commons

April 8, 2016

The novel and play that predicted Donald Trump’s rise – and countered a swell of Great Depression demagoguery

Charlotte M. Canning, The University of Texas at Austin

Sinclair Lewis’ 1935 novel ‘It Can’t Happen Here,’ which described the rise of an American dictator, was turned into a play seen by over 500,000 people.

Ridley Scott’s casting choices for Exodus: Gods and Kings are emblematic of a larger, systemic problem in the entertainment industry. Movie Pilot

December 17, 2014

Ridley Scott’s casting of white actors is symptomatic of larger problems

Charlotte M. Canning, The University of Texas at Austin

Director Ridley Scott recently set off a firestorm when he dismissed those who criticized him for casting white actors as every major character in the recently released Exodus: Gods and Kings, while reserving…

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