Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities

Realities and Representations: The 2008 U.S. Presidential Campaign

For over two hundred years, major presidential candidates in the United States have been white and male. For the first time in U.S. history, voters had the option of electing our first white female or our first African-American male president. Is the country ready to move beyond our history of sexism and racism to put either a woman or an African American in the White House? The candidate of the other party is a white male; does this ensure a Republican victory in the coming November elections? Do race, class, or gender trump campaign platforms or political experience?

Upcoming lectures

"A New Birth of Freedom: Barack Obama and the Rhetorical Uses of History"

John M. Murphy, Associate Professor of Speech Communication at the University of Illinois

4:10 p.m. on Monday, February 16, 2009
Auditorium of the Bishop Joseph Johnson Black Cultural Center

_______________

"Network Nation: How Campaign Ads and the Internet Shape Participation"

Dhavan Shah, Louis A. and Mary E. Maier-Bascom Professor of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Wisconsin-Madison

RESCHEDULED for Fall 2009 - check back for confirmed date

Previous Lectures

“All the News That’s Fit to Blog: Old Media, New media, and the Brave New World of Election 2008" (video)

Peter Applebome, writer and editor, The New York Times

October 13, 2008

_______________

"Gender and Hillary Clinton's Campaign: The Good, the Bad, and the Misogynic"(video)

Susan J. Carroll, Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University

September 22, 2008

[ Vanderbilt University | Site Index | Search Vanderbilt | Help ]

Created by Vanderbilt University Design & Publishing.
Photo credits: Gerald Holly and Vanderbilt University Publications & Design.