Brown Bag series featuring faculty roundtable on election

“Reflections, Lessons and Implications” continues campus’ Brown Bag Lecture Series

FREDONIA, N.Y. — December 1, 2008 — The SUNY Fredonia Brown Bag lecture series is pleased to feature a post-election conversation in which faculty scholars representing multiple disciplines will compare notes on one of the most momentous presidential election campaigns in U.S. history. Entitled, “Reflections, Lessons and Implications,” the event will take place on Wednesday, Dec. 3, at noon in Room S-104 of the Williams Center. It is free and open to all campus and community members; classes are also welcome.

The faculty panel, moderated by Dr. Jeanette McVicker of the Department of English, will include Dr. Linda Brigance of the Department of Communication, Dr. David Rankin of the Department of Political Science, and Jacqueline Swansinger of the Department of History. The group will report on and discuss the significance of the various campaign strategies, media connections, voter reactions, and the long- and short-term domestic and international consequences of this critical election cycle.

The four participants’ expertise in this area includes:

• Linda Czuba Brigance is an Associate Professor of Communication Studies. Her research specialties are political communication and the rhetoric of public history. She has presented and published extensively in both areas, most recently at the Canadian Association for Women’s Public History and the Mid-Atlantic Popular/American Culture Association. Dr. Brigance has followed this fascinating election with students in her Political Communication course this semester.

• Jeanette McVicker is a Professor of English and the longstanding adviser for The Leader campus newspaper. Her scholarship and teaching cross several disciplines, including modernist literature, contemporary theory, women’s studies and journalism. Her published work in media studies includes contributions to anthologies on journalism education and political economy, several conference papers analyzing U.S. journalism, and book reviews for the H-NET listserv J-History. She is currently researching journalistic rhetoric in the reporting of the War on Terror.

• David Rankin is an Associate Professor of Political Science. He is the coauthor and coeditor of several books on American elections and the presidency, including the forthcoming Winning the White House, 2008 (Palgrave MacMillan, 2009). He has followed the election carefully and been a featured interview subject for multiple regional media outlets, and has led his students through introductory and upper-level courses focused on the election this semester. He will discuss the general breakdown of the 2008 Electoral College results across key regions, states and social groups, and address what it potentially means for the policy objectives and challenges of the Obama administration.

• Jacqueline Swansinger is a Professor of History. She has published in modern American history, foreign policy in the Middle East, economics, politics and immigration. In recent years she has shifted to world history, which is more hospitable to interdisciplinary methodologies, and serves as president of the Mid-Atlantic World History Association. She is intrigued by the designed demographic stratification of public discourse in the recent election and how it fits with the historical democratic ethos.

The Brown Bag Lecture series, sponsored by the College of Arts and Humanities, offers informal talks on the first Wednesday of each academic month, October through May, featuring new creative and scholarly work by members of the SUNY Fredonia faculty. Each presentation is followed by a brief discussion. Refreshments will be served and all members of the campus and community are welcome to attend.

For more information on the lecture series, please contact Natalie Gerber, series director, at 716-673-3855 or natalie.gerber@fredonia.edu.