Dixie Forum to host presentation on charismatic leadership in politics

Dixie Forum to host presentation on charismatic leadership in politics

Dr. Jeremy Young, assistant professor of history at Dixie State University, will present on the emergence of charismatic leadership in American politics in the next installment of DSU’s weekly lecture series Dixie Forum. Young’s presentation “Presidential Leadership in the Age of Charisma” will be held at noon on Tuesday, Feb. 14, in the Dunford Auditorium of the Browning Resource Center on the Dixie State campus. Admission is free, and the public is encouraged to attend. In his presentation, Young will address the recent election of President Donald Trump by examining a period in American history when charismatic outsiders were everywhere. Young will analyze how and why Americans shifted from valuing remoteness and emotional distance to demanding their leaders establish personal connections with constituents. Additionally, he will discuss how charismatic movements injected a democratic element into American society and changed the culture of leadership from emotional distance to emotional connection. In addition to teaching at Dixie State, Young has written the book “The Age of Charisma: Leaders, Followers, and Emotions in American Society, 1870-1940”. His book explores how the modern relationship between leaders and followers stems from charismatic social movements of the late 1800s and early 1900s. A historian of the 19th and 20th centuries in the U.S., Young earned his doctorate in United States history from Indiana University. His historical interests include the history of emotions, social movements and political communication. Young’s work has appeared in the Journal of Social History, the Journal of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era, and Forest History Today. Dixie Forum is a weekly lecture series designed to introduce the St. George community and DSU students, faculty and staff to diverse ideas and personalities while widening their worldviews via a 50-minute presentation. In partnership with DSU DOCUTAH International Documentary Film Festival, Dixie Forum will host a special screening of “A Bold Peace: Costa Rica” at 5 p.m. on Feb. 15 in the Zion Room on the fifth floor of Dixie State’s Holland Centennial Commons. The film tells how Costa Rica redirected resources to education, health and the environment, and Producer and Director Matthew Eddy will attend to answer questions. The Forum will be on recess next week, but will resume Feb. 28 with a presentation from Dixie Regional Medical Center Dr. Lincoln Nadauld, Dixie State Biology Adviser Doug Sainsbury and DSU students who interned at Stanford last summer. They will speak about the DSU/Intermountain-DRMC Summer Undergraduate Research Internship at Stanford. For more information about Dixie State University’s Dixie Forum series, please contact DSU Forum Coordinator John Burns at 435-879-4712 or burns@utahtech.edu or visit humanities.utahtech.edu/the-dixie-forum.