Occupy Wall Street is a transnational movement: US scholar

Chennai:

Occupy Wall Street protest is a transnational movement where people living outside the United States are interpreting it and giving it back to America, according to Dr Eric Sandeen, professor and director of the American Studies Programme at the University of Wyoming.

Delivering a lecture on ‘The Search of Civility in Contemporary America,’ he defended the protest saying protests are key to citizenship and it surprises the authorities. “Democracy always require negotiations and people who object,” he said.

He said such protests make the space of patriotism wider.

He also said the in the Net culture the ethical restraint has not arrived yet. The professor also said that personal interaction is becoming rare and face to face communication is less practiced today.

He also said there is a need to think on how much of public culture can be replicated through Internet and how much has to be face to face. He said civic virtue is embedded in a dense reciprocal social relation and added it is hard to have a civil society without social network.

Earlier, US Consul General Jennifer McIntyre launched official website of South Indian American Studies Network. Dr Sridhar, secretary of SIASN, said it is a depository relating to American studies. “Since the physical networking of scholars specialized in American Studies is difficult, we thought of an alternative and we hope this website will address the problem, he added.

McIntyre said American studies in India as elsewhere in the world is at an interesting crossroads. “Globalisation and multiculturalism have forced introspection on the definition, relevance and future of American studies in Indian and around the world,” she added.