In recent years, examples such as COVID-19 denialism and the US-election of Donald Trump have shown that although the plurality of knowledge and political competition between knowledge claims is not new per se, we have entered an era where things we previously thought would be impossible now occur. The media landscape of the 21st century gives diverse actors access to large publics and hence allows knowledge claims to compete and ‘truth’ to be challenged in unprecedented ways.
The current situation casts new light on questions about the connections between power, privilege, practices, and knowledge and makes it particularly important to understand their related processes – something critical scholars are well-positioned to do. As academics, we need to reflect on our roles in knowledge production and respond to the post-truth society’s challenges. We need to understand the workings of imaginaries and discourses, investigate the rationales for the post-truth era, discuss the methodological implications of plural knowledges, and formulate a new research agenda that allow us to effectively intervene to further justice. One forum to begin this work is the Knowledge and Politics (KOP) Salon.
The KOP Salon brings together scholars and students across departments to discuss and advance our understanding of politics and knowledges. The KOP salon is intended as a welcoming space where we can feel comfortable not knowing and challenge ourselves as we grapple with pressing and complex questions. The Salon meets every other week and the content varies: we read and discuss literature, have guest lectures (academic and otherwise), discuss each other’s draft papers, and occasionally go on field trips.
