Michele Moe-Forsyte

Dr. Michele Moe-Forsyte studied literary and cultural theory at Carnegie Mellon University and earned her PhD in 1999 with a dissertation on class analysis and public/private sphere relationships in early twentieth century American literature. This research interest has carried over into her course design during her years at UCLA, with a special focus in the last eight years on how public and private institutions function in a declining democracy. During this period, she has developed four distinct courses that help students think through a period of rapid cultural change.

Some of these classes have addressed social justice movements and artistic resistance to authoritarianism, while others examine the effects of conspiracy thinking on voting integrity and the growing politicization of the courts. Overall, Michele’s classes concentrate on encouraging students to be more conscious thinkers and writers by engaging them in the political and cultural debates of their historical moment. By foregrounding their own relationship to shifting political values and norms, students have been able to write complex papers that reflect their own evolving political awareness and even participation in the public sphere of ideas.

Beginning in fall 2024, Michele will join the Dialogue Across Differences initiative as a teaching fellow to learn more about how to navigate difficult conversations about controversial topics in the classroom. In preparation, she is creating a new class about political extremism using the work of scholars in the field as well as pop culture texts and cultural criticism about contemporary conflicts, such as the January 6th attack on the U.S. Capitol and the upcoming national election. Riptide, Resisting the Pull of Political Violence will juxtapose case studies of historical examples of political violence with popular culture texts and cultural criticism about political extremism flashpoints in American society.