In the wake of the Jan. 6 insurrection, journalist and scholar Jeff Sharlet set out to uncover the forces behind the rise of antidemocratic extremism in the United States; what one critic described as a "yearslong, one-man anthropological expedition into the heartland of the far right."
The resulting book, "The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War," was a New York Times bestseller and has been called an "unmatched guide to the religious dimensions of American politics." Sharlet will visit Penn State University Park to present a lecture on his work on April 15 at 5 p.m. in 114 Susan Welch Liberal Arts Building.
As part of the reporting for "The Undertow," Sharlet attended President Donald Trump's rallies, traced the political roots of Ashli Babbit, who died during the insurrection, and interviewed everyone from QAnon supporters to pastors to militia members.
"The result is a riveting, vividly detailed collage of political and moral derangement in America," wrote reviewer Joseph O'Neill in the New York Times.
Although "The Undertow" shows the fault lines in American democracy, Sharlet said he remains hopeful about the country's ability to persevere and perhaps even overcome antidemocratic forces. The book opens and closes with reflections on the lives of musicians Harry Belafonte and Lee Hays, of the group The Weavers, both of whom were involved in the civil rights movement.
"I wanted to find a kind of hope, but I did not want to find a hope of like, 'We can do it!' Because I don't know if we can," Sharlet told The Guardian in 2023. "But I know that we can struggle. Lee Hays was incredibly brave at a moment in his life and was broken by it, and Harry Belafonte was brave every moment of his life."
Sharlet is also the author of "The Family: The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power," which was adapted into a Netflix documentary series, and "This Brilliant Darkness: A Book of Strangers." He is the Frederick Sessions Beebe '35 Professor in the Art of Writing and Director of Creative Writing at Dartmouth College and a contributing editor at Vanity Fair. He has received the National Magazine Award, the Molly Ivins Prize and Outright International's Outspoken Award.
Sharlet's lecture will be recorded and made available on the McCourtney Institute for Democracy's YouTube channel
