Steven Gardiner

Steven Gardiner started researching and writing in opposition to the politics of bigotry, violence, and authoritarianism in the early 1990s. Working for the Portland, Oregon-based Coalition for Human Dignity (CHD), he did some of the first analyses of the Religious Right in the Northwest and his work supported the years-long fight against anti-LGBTQ ballot measures of the Oregon Citizens Alliance. As editor of CHD’s newsletter, The Dignity Report, and principal writer and analyst on a series of articles and reports he helped to shape understanding and arm the resistance to antisemitism, Holocaust denial, the Patriot and militia movements, anti-immigrant xenophobia and anti-LGBTQ politics. In 2004 Gardiner received a Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Cornell University for his work on military masculinity and conscientious objection in the German military. Since earning his doctorate, he has taught more than twenty different courses at eight universities in the United States, Pakistan, and the UAE. Selected publications include “In the Shadow of Service: Veteran Masculinity and Civil-Military Disjuncture in the United States” (North American Dialogue, 2013), “Behold the Man: Heroic Masochism, Militant Christianity, and Mel Gibson’s Passion” (Cultural Analysis, 2013), and “White Nationalism Revisited: Demographic Dystopia and White Identity Politics (Journal of Hate Studies, 2006).