January Book of the Month: Strangers in Their Own Land

Introducing the Interfaith Roundtable – a monthly discussion on a book that’s relevant to interfaith action and social justice. We invite you to join us each month by reading the selected book and watching the live discussion on Facebook Live. The live discussions will include CLU faculty, leaders in the field, as well as occasionally the author of the book.

Book of the Month:

Strangers in Their Own Land: Anger and Mourning on the American Right

Strangers in Their Own Land is a fascinating account of the author’s attempt to scale the “empathy” wall that obscures the widening political divide in the United States of America. It documents the quest of a West Coast California progressive who is determined to understand the thought processes of Deep South Louisianan conservatives whose political allegiances often seem to counter their own socio-economic—and even moral—realities. These are the people who found it easy to join Trump’s call to “make America great again,” because their perception of liberal oppression makes them feel like “strangers in their own land.”

Watch the January session now:

Author bio:

According to The New Press,  Arlie Russell Hochschild is one of the most influential sociologists of her generation. She is the author of nine books, including The Second Shift, The Time Bind, The Managed Heart, The Outsourced Self, and Strangers in Their Own Land (The New Press). Three of her books have been named as New York Times Notable Books of the Year and her work appears in sixteen languages. The winner of the Ulysses Medal as well as Guggenheim and Mellon grants, she lives in Berkeley, California.

Top takeaway from this month’s book:

Our nation’s political divide can only be overcome when people on either side of the ideological chasm embrace a transformative empathy that compels them to want for their neighbor what they would want for themselves.

In this month’s Interfaith Roundtable meeting, we will be discussing:

• Why some on the political right believe that the government has allowed their country to be taken away from them
• Why some people endorse socio-economic positions that contradict the very ideals they espouse
• How the current immigration debate provides an opportunity to reflect on America’s past
• How to ask the “right” questions for meaningful conversation with those of differing cultural views

Date & time of this month’s live meeting:

Wednesday, January 31, 2018 at 6:00 p.m. PST on Facebook Live

This month, our panelists are:

• Kathleen Green is the Executive Director of the Yale Humanist Community and is a member of the Teaching Faculty for the MIFA program at Claremont Lincoln University.
• Dr. Edith Clay Fraser serves on the Ph.D. faculty of Smith College of Social Work and is an inductee in the Alabama Social Work Hall of Fame.

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