Political Science Department Launches Election Events Series – "Unprecedented Politics"

Political Science Department Launches Election Events Series – “Unprecedented Politics”

Ph.D./M.A. Program in Political Science
The Graduate Center, The City University of New York,
presents:

Election 2016: Unprecedented Politics, New Challenges for Political Science

The 2016 election is proving to be an historic one, pitting the first woman nominee from a major party against an outsider candidate who defies his own party. Beyond conventional and convention politics, tensions run high over the deaths of black men by the police, LGBTQ people, particularly Latin@s, are reeling from a massacre at a southern nightclub, and the chasm of economic, social, and political inequality deepens.

The Ph.D./M.A. Program in Political Science at The Graduate Center, CUNY, will host a series of vibrant conversations about the general election and what insights political scientists might offer about our current moment of unprecedented politics. Journalists, political operatives, and activists will join scholars from the tri-state area to consider issues and perspectives often neglected in other venues.

The Unprecedented Politics series will include:

  • The State of the Presidential Race and its Meaning
    Tuesday, Sept 20 |
     4:15-6pm | Thesis Room
    Featuring faculty and students from The Graduate Center, CUNY

    As the fall campaign is in full swing, what have we learned so far and what can we expect as the election heads into debate season and its final two crucial months? Please join our American Politics faculty and students as they dissect the 2016 presidential election.

  • Dark Money and Political Advertising
    Tuesday, Sept 27 |
     2-4pm | Thesis Room
    Featuring Travis Ridout (Washington State University and the Wesleyan Media Project)

    Travis Ridout of Washington State University and the Wesleyan Media Project will talk about his work tracking “dark money” through political advertising, and what past results from WMP research can tell us about the state of the current election.

  • Paying the Price: College Costs & Betrayal of American Dream
    Wednesday, Sept. 28 | 6:00-8:30pm | Room C197
    Featuring Sara Goldrick-Rab (Temple University) and Mark Zuckerman (The Century Foundation)

    The issue of college costs has animated the 2016 election.Sara Goldrick-Rab’s new book “Paying the Price: College Costs and the Betrayal of the American Dream” (Chicago, 2016) shows why college is no longer affordable for so many students. The event will focus on the book, ways to address the college cost issue, and consequences of continuing current public policies.

  • What We Don’t Talk About When We Talk About the Election
    Thursday, Sept. 29 |
     4:15-6:00pm | Room 9205
    Featuring Cristina Beltrán (NYU), Joshua Freeman (The Graduate Center CUNY), and Michael Javen Fortner (The Murphy Institute, CUNY)

    Discussions about presidential elections often focus on internal party politics, electoral college math, and “independent voters.” What’s often missing from these conversations are issues of race, gender, class, and their intersections. In this discussion, Michael Javen Fortner (The Murphy Institute, CUNY) and Alyson Cole (The Graduate Center, CUNY) moderate a discussion among leading thinkers in Black, Latino/a, feminist, and labor politics — including Cristina Beltrán (NYU) and Joshua Freeman (The Graduate Center, CUNY) — to consider how these issues of power and their intersections have shaped this election cycle, and how the outcome will impact possibilities for racial, gender, and economic justice.

  • Is There a Digital Divide Between Democrats and Republicans? Why Republicans Can’t Work the Remote
    Thursday, October 13 |
    2-3:30pm | Room C198
    Featuring Daniel Kreiss (University of North Carolina), Jessica Baldwin-Philippi (Fordham University), Michael Benjamin (New York Post) and Heath Brown (John Jay College and The Graduate Center CUNY)

    Who’s ahead in the polls often has to do with who’s ahead in technology. This event focuses on a new book on the subject by Prof. Daniel Kreiss called “Prototype Politics: The Making and Unmaking of Technological Innovation in the Republican and Democratic Parties, 2000-2014,” (Oxford, 2016). Prototype Politics charts the rise of digital campaign technologies and very different ways the two parties have adopted recent innovations. Kreiss will be joined by Prof. Jessica Baldwin-Philippi from Fordham University and Michael Benjamin from the editorial department of the New York Post to discuss how technology and media are shaping the 2016 election.

  • The Coming Crack-Up of American Politics
    Thursday, October 20 |
     6-8:30pm | Skylight Room
    Featuring Stanley Greenberg (author and former presidential advisor) and Jennifer Hochschild(Harvard University and president of APSA)

    The United States is undergoing economic, social, and cultural changes that are reshaping American politics and undermining older welfare state policies. Best-selling author and advisor to presidents, prime ministers, and CEOs,Stanley Greenberg argues in his recent book America Ascendant (MacMillan, 2015) that these changes create a great opportunity for the Democratic Party to reinvent itself, especially given that the Republican Party has committed itself to resisting these changes at all costs. Jennifer Hochschild, Professor of Government at Harvard University and President of the American Political Science Association, argues that these changes have also created a “left pessimism” – where policies advocated by the progressive consensus, like civil rights, anti-war activism, and gender equality, have both been partly achieved and face more complex realities, including the rise of new immigrant minorities, strife in weak states, and a precarious workplace. In this conversation, Greenberg and Hochschild will discuss how social change is breaking down old alignments and creating spaces for new forms of progressivism.  Greenberg will also update the analysis in his book to shed light on the implications of a Clinton versus Trump presidential race.

  • What Do We Do Tomorrow? Election Watch Party and Department Discussion
    Tuesday, November 8 | 7pm | Department Lounge
    Featuring Francis Fox Piven (The Graduate Center CUNY) and Philip Green (Smith College and The Nation)

    Join political science scholars to watch the election results come in and discuss what this election and its outcome might mean for American and global politics and political science.Francis Fox Piven (The Graduate Center, CUNY) and Philip Green (Smith College) will lead a conversation among students and faculty to discuss our assessments of the election, what it means, and what we do about it tomorrow.

  • Beyond the Punditry: Fresh Perspectives on the 2016 Presidential Election
    Thursday, November 10 |
     4:15-6pm | Room C198
    Featuring Celeste Katz (Mic, online news platform) and Sam Wang (Princeton)

    A post-mortem assessment of the election, moving beyond standard journalistic accounts. Panelists include Celeste Katz (Mic, online news platform targeting millennials), Sam Wang (Princeton Election Consortium), and Monika L. McDermott (Fordham University).

 

All events are free and open to the public.