On Wednesday Oct. 25, Hamilton College hosted esteemed historian and political theorist Paul Gottfried. A recipient of a PhD in Political Science from Yale University, Dr. Gottfried is the former Horace Raffensperger Professor of Humanities at Elizabethtown College in Elizabethtown, Pennsylvania. A paleoconservative, Dr. Gottfried is noted for coining the term “alt-right,” and many of his writings have been recently cited and highly regarded by active members of the this group, including Richard Spencer. In his time on campus, Dr. Gottfried lectured for two classes, the Government class “Modern Conservative Politics” and the History class “Nazi Germany.”
In “Nazi Germany,” a course taught by Edward B. Graves Professor of History Alfred Kelly, Dr. Gottfried discussed differentiations among fascist regimes in the 20th century. In particular, Dr. Gottfried delved into the influence of the Catholic Church in Italian fascism under Benito Mussolini and how Italian fascism differed from that of the Nazi regime.
Louis Dzialo ’19, an Art History concentrator and History minor, remarked that, “the lecture maintained a tone of apolitical academic mundanity but was informative nonetheless.” Questions posed by students covered a wide range of topics, including Dr. Gottfried’s contemporary writings on the welfare state, and what he thought on the rise and supposed threat of the “alt-right” in the United States. Jake Altman-Desole ’19, a History concentrator and French minor, said that, “when Richard Spencer and the alt-right were brought up, Dr. Gottfried wrote them off as insignificant racialists who seek to legitimize their ideology.”
Directly prior to the class, a group of students organized a protest against Dr. Gottfried’s visit to the college. The students circulated flyers with three quotes from Dr. Gottfried related to race. The students presented signs reading, “we stand against white supremacy” and “no space for the alt-right.” Katherine Barnes ’20, Phoebe Keyes ’19, and Gwyn Sise ’19 organized the protest.
In the opening part of their statement sent to the author after the event, the student protestors wrote, “our goal for the demonstration was to make our voices louder than Paul Gottfried’s. His violent rhetoric encourages the extreme belief of white supremacy. Having a speaker on campus so tied to the alt-right movement is extremely harmful to marginalized groups on campus.”
An observer to the protest, Landis Hagerty ’19, a Public Policy concentrator who also sat in on the class, said that “it was nice to see a community response to a controversial figure which centered on a dignified show of opposition rather than an attempt to silence. If those who invited Professor Gottfried secretly hoped for hysterics, they sure didn’t get any.”
As a conclusion to his visit, Dr. Gottfried will be presiding over a dinner at the Alexander Hamilton Institute for the Study of Western Civilization on the night of Thursday, Oct. 26.
