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OPUS Events

In conjunction with Team Populism, Opus Initiative has so far introduced the following events:

  • Graduate Seminars: Over the course of five meetings taking place throughout the academic year, several young scholars get the opportunity to meet with the OPUS members as well as senior scholars from Team Populism to share their work and receive detailed feedback in a supportive and stimulating environment. 
  • OPUS Conversation With…: These members-only series bring young scholars and the most established academics working on populism in a discussion format to deliberate over the state of the field, theoretical and empirical debates, current developments, and more. We plan these semi-formal events to only proceed with questions and answers (without any lectures or presentations) and use this opportunity to give YOU the floor. 
  • Brown Bag Lunches: Monthly meetings focused on the presentation and discussion of articles that are still in their infancy or in the development stage in a more informal setting. 
  • Newsletters & Blog Posts: Monthly blog posts (articles and/or interviews) investigating and discussing populism in all its forms. The latest blog posts can be found here (if possible a new page including the latest blog posts - listed on item 2 below): 

For Summer 2023, Opus Initiative plans on holding its first:

  • Graduate Student Conference: A high-profile international academic event run by OPUS Initiative, guided by the experience and expertise of Team Populism and joined by young scholars in any capacity (i.e. paper presenter, discussant or chair). 
  • Emerging Scholars Workshop: OPUS Young Scholars Initiative on Populism is thrilled to announce its first Emerging Scholars Workshop, "The Road Ahead: Charting the Course for the Future of Populism Studies." The workshop will be held in a virtual setting to align with OPUS's inclusive and diversified nature and is scheduled to take place on September 19-20, 2023, with participants joining from various locations around the globe. It aims to bring together early-career researchers (PhDs and post-docs as well as advanced Masters students) who have extensive experience with populism as a subject. We encourage applicants from all backgrounds and regions to apply.

In addition, there are currently two Team Populism initiatives that might be of particular interest for OPUS members: The first one is the training materials for the holistic grading technique to code speeches, that have been recorded and are available online, so OPUS members can complete the training and code the country of their choice. The second is the Leader Profile Series (https://populism.byu.edu/Pages/LeaderProfileSeries), peer-reviewed publications that combine quantitative and qualitative data to describe the populism of individual leaders (or lack thereof) from around the globe on the Team Populism website.