Steven Gardiner

Steven Gardiner started researching and writing in opposition to the politics of bigotry An attitude toward social identities that can be mobilized to justify discrimination, state/vigilante violence, and exploitation. Learn more , violence, and authoritarianism A form of top-down political system that concentrates state power in the hands of a single leader and/or group of close allies. Learn more 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 Often used interchangeably with Christian Right, but also can describe broader conservative religious coalitions that are not limited to Christians. Can include right-wing Jews, Muslims, Hindus, Mormons, and members of the Unification Church of Sun Myung Moon. Learn more 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 A form of oppression targeting Jews and those perceived to be Jewish, including bigoted speech, violent acts, and discriminatory policy. Learn more , Holocaust denial, the Patriot and militia movements, anti-immigrant A term used to describe organizations, movements, ideas, and policies that oppose immigrants and immigration. Learn more xenophobia Fear of or distaste for people or ideas thought to be strange or foreign. Often fomented to build support for anti-immigrant measures. Learn more 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 The belief in the primacy of “the nation” as the most important political allegiance, that every nation should have its own state, and that it is the primary responsibility of the state and its leaders to preserve the nation. Learn more Revisited: Demographic Dystopia and White Identity Politics (Journal of Hate Studies, 2006).