Events

Join us on October 16 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Leah Rosenstiel, PhD, to discuss her new book Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities.

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

Roughly $1 trillion of the US federal budget is distributed annually through grants-in-aid to state and local governments rather than individuals, heavily impacting local public service quality. While these funding formulas seem impartial and based on objective needs like population or poverty, Leah Rosenstiel’s Politics by Formula reveals they are deeply distorted by political institutions. Congressional committee leaders deliberately design these formulas to favor their own constituencies. Neutral formulas shield these political choices from public scrutiny while simultaneously constraining lawmakers, ultimately driving geographic inequalities and determining whose needs are prioritized across states.

Leah Rosenstiel is assistant professor of political science at Vanderbilt University.  A central interest of her work is understanding how politics affects the distribution of federal funding and the design of government assistance programs. Some of this research appears in my book, Politics by Formula: How Congressional Policymaking Creates Disparities, published by the

Join us on October 30 at noon/PT as we welcome special guest Dr. Kevin Morris to discuss his latest book, An American Problem: How the County Built - and the Supreme Court Broke - the Voting Rights Act. 

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

Kevin T. Morris is senior research fellow and voting policy scholar at the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University School of Law.

The rise and fall of the Voting Rights Act, from the triumph of its passage in 1965 to its evisceration by the Supreme Court in their 2013 decision in Shelby County v. Holder

Join us on November 20 at noon/MST as we welcome special guest Rick Pidcock to discuss his new book Weapons of Worship: How the Songs of Evangelicalism Form the Soundtrack of Extremism. 

Register for this virtual presentation here. 

In a sweeping investigation of the music of megachurches and political rallies, how did songs beloved by white evangelicals become the soundtrack of Christian supremacy's war on democracy?

Praise and worship music often fits hand-in-glove with Christian Trumpism, and in this unsettling account, journalist Rick Pidcock asks: How did songs like "How Great Is Our God" become anthems of rallies for the regime? How do lyrics like "Praise is the water my enemies drown in" shape the people who sing them? Singing with others creates a powerful sense of belonging and transcendence. So what happens when the music of one movement becomes the soundtrack of another?

Join us on Friday, December 4 at noon/MST as we welcome special guest Michael Blanding to discuss his new book The Gospel According to Hobby Lobby: Inside a Billionaire Family's Quest to Craft a Christian Nation.

Michael Blanding is a Boston-based investigative journalist and author of In Shakespeare’s Shadow and the New York Times bestseller, The Map Thief. A former senior writer at Boston Magazine and senior fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School, his work has appeared in The New York Times, WIRED, Slate, Smithsonian, The Boston Globe, and other publications. Visit his website at www.michaelblanding.com.