Paul Thomas authors new book, “Trumplandia”

Furman Education Professor Paul Thomas has published a new book, Trumplandia: Unmasking Post-Truth America (Garn Press).

Using a series of essays, Trumplandia examines how a reality TV star as president represents post-truth America as a failed democracy and as a country still wrangling with deep-seated racism, classism, sexism, and xenophobia. Thomas highlights the work of literary greats James Baldwin and Langston Hughes as a paradox to modern-day claims of “Make America Great Again.”

“It’s not about Trump. It’s about us,” said Thomas. “It’s about the American character, who we claim to be and who we really are.”

A recurring theme throughout the book is an implicit question: How can Americans resist Trumplandia and truly become a democracy?

Before joining the Furman faculty in 2002, Thomas taught high school English in rural South Carolina. He earned undergraduate, master’s and doctoral degrees in education from the University of South Carolina.

He is a column co-editor for the English Journal, a publication of the National Council of Teachers of English, and series editor for Critical Literacy Teaching Series: Challenging Authors and Genres (Sense Publishers), in which he authored the first volume—Challenging Genres: Comics and Graphic Novels in 2010 and co-edited a volume on James Baldwin in 2014.

He has published books on Barbara Kingsolver, Kurt Vonnegut, Margaret Atwood, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Haruki Murakami; and his recent books include De-Testing and De-Grading Schools (Peter Lang USA, 2016), Pedagogies of Kindness and Respect: On the Lives and Education of Children (Peter Lang USA, 2015), and Beware the Roadbuilders (Garn, 2015).

He was the 2013 recipient of the George Orwell Award presented by National Council of Teachers of English, and has written commentaries for the Washington Post, The New York Times, The Guardian, Education Week, The State, and The Greenville News.

Read Thomas’ blog at https://radicalscholarship.wordpress.com/. Trumplandia is available through Amazon. A Reader for Trumplandia, a list of books and articles compiled by Thomas, is available here.

For more information, contact Furman’s News and Media Relations office at 864-294-3107.