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Colloquium: Transregional History | Dr. Augusta Dell'Omo (Southern Methodist University): Networking White Supremacy – Understanding the Pro-Apartheid Movement, 1980-1988

Augusta Dell’Omo is a Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for Presidential History at Southern Methodist University. She received her Ph.D. in History from the University of Texas at Austin in 2022. Her research agenda focuses broadly on global white supremacist movements and their use of emerging mass media and Internet technologies.

Her talk focuses on her current book project. Her book manuscript, titled Saving Apartheid: White Supremacist Internationalism at the Dawn of the Internet Age, is the first examination of the “pro-apartheid” movement’s organizing in the United States and South Africa. By mapping an international network of white supremacist and terrorist organizations, Saving Apartheid argues that as the apartheid state crumbled, a global ecosystem of white supremacist actors took up the mantle of white rule, working to preserve apartheid at home and its reputation abroad. Combing critical security theories, African studies, and political history, she analyzes how white power groups in the United States, Eurasia, and South Africa built transatlantic networks that influenced policymaking in the face of mainstream right-wing opposition to apartheid. Saving Apartheid weaves together narratives of state and non-state actors, uncovering far-right organizing before the Internet and the historical origins of contemporary far-right extremism. Her research has been supported by the Mellon Foundation, the Social Science Research Council, the American Council of Learned Societies, and the Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations, and others.

Committed to bridging the gap between academia, policymakers, and the general public, Augusta works as an Associate Policy Researcher at the Bridging Divides Initiative at Princeton University. Previously, Augusta produced two podcasts - Right Rising and 15 Minute History. She graduated with highest distinction and highest honors from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (B.A. 2016). Find her on Twitter @Augusta_Caesar!

Venue

Online via Zoom and in H51

Information/Contact

citas@ur.de

  1. HOMEPAGE UR