This presentation examines how history politics have shaped the U.S. Culture Wars – the collection of cultural conflicts regarding values and norms of the country and its society. Kolehmainen has explored how political rhetoric has turned the Founding Fathers into objects of historical imagination, using them as justifications for present-day political positions. He draws on two particular research projects: his past work on U.S. gun culture as part of the Academy of Finland funded “Campus Carry” project at the John Morton Center for North American Studies and his new postdoctoral project on the conceptual history of antifeminism at the Turku Institute for Advanced Studies. Kolehmainen looks at how appeals to the historical authority of the Founding Fathers have been used in both of these frontiers in the U.S. Culture Wars.
