Featuring Alexandra Filindra, associate professor of political science and psychology at University of Illinois Chicago. 

Filindra's new book Race, Rights, and Rifles examines the ties between American gun culture and white male supremacy from the American Revolution to today. 

Although many associate gun-centric ideology with individualist and libertarian traditions in American political culture, Race, Rights, and Rifles shows that it rests on an equally old but different foundation. Instead, Alexandra Frilindra shows that American gun culture can be traced back to the American Revolution when republican notions of civic duty were fused with a belief in white male supremacy and a commitment to maintaining racial and gender hierarchies.

Drawing on wide-ranging historical and contemporary evidence, Race, Rights, and Rifles traces how this ideology emerged during the Revolution and became embedded in America’s institutions, from state militias to the NRA.

Alexandra Filindra specializes in American gun politics, immigration policy, race and ethnic politics, public opinion, and political psychology. Filindra received her Ph.D. from Rutgers University and served as a post-doctoral researcher at Brown University’s Taubman Center for Public Policy and American Institutions and the Center for the Study of Human Development. The author of more than 30 peer-reviewed articles, Filindra has received research grants from the University of Illinois Chicago, the Pew Center for the States, the Russell Sage Foundation, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, and the Rhode Island Foundation. She is the recipient of three best paper awards from the American Political Science Association and the Lucius Barker Award from the Midwest Political Science Association. 

This event is part of the Wayne Morse Center's Public Affairs Speaker Series and is free and open to the public. Free pizza will be available for attendees.