What’s Going On?: The Struggle for Contemporary American Identity

Exploring the backstory of contemporary political polarization, What’s Going On? recognizes that simple stories of blame and uncontested stories of polarization prove themselves to be bad stories that produce bad politics.

This book argues that stories have increasingly become matters of affect rather than meaning--instead of asking what stories mean, we are likely to ask how they make people feel. These stories are cultural tendencies that define the possibilities and limits of political action and behavior, and the book tells its own story about how the stories of America’s crises have defined our political culture as they struggle over questions of ideology, identity, and social belonging. It lays out a theoretical position that recognizes the need for complicated stories and rigorous thought, pointing a way forward, out of the chaos, seeking to repair the world and offer better stories and more humane political possibilities.

This work is a vital resource for students and instructors in sociology, political science, cultural studies, media studies, and communication, in such courses as contemporary social theory, contemporary political theory, media, politics and society, and social movements and resistance.

The book will be an important guide for activists, organizers, and community field workers, and for anyone else who wishes to have a better understanding of the contemporary political moment and how to mobilize toward building a better future.

Lawrence Grossberg is Distinguished Professor Emeritus of Communication at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the author and editor of numerous books, including Cultural Studies in the Future Tense (2010), We All Want to Change the World (2015), Under the Cover of Chaos (2018), and On the Way to Theory (2024).