Dr. Allison Hurst will discuss the ways the 'Age of Affluence' was interpreted and misinterpreted by social science.

We now recognize that the post-WWII "Age of Affluence," as it was known to contemporary observers, was an historically anomalous period of flattened economic inequality, lying like a trough between two highly inegalitarian eras. Hurst will discuss the ways social scientists of the time mistook the flattened, high-growth abundant era as a natural consequence of modern democratic societies rather than as a result of hard-fought political struggles consequent upon economic dislocation and war. She’ll also trace how the repercussions of their blunder manifest in our current state of politics.

Allison Hurst teaches courses in the School of Public Policy on the sociology of higher education, class inequality and social mobility, and sociological theory. She is one of the founders of the Association of Working-Class Academics.