Past Speakers
April 12, 2021: Natália Bueno, Emory University
Race, Gender, and Descriptive Representation in Latin America
Natália S. Bueno is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Emory University. She studies comparative politics, with a research focus on public policy, political economy of development, elections and race, and a regional concentration in Latin America. She is working on research projects on the political logic of nonstate welfare provision, provision of public goods, the political effects of public policies as well as the causes of the underrepresentation of racial groups in electoral politics.
April 5, 2021: Ashley Anderson, University of North Carolina
More than a Secular Muslim Divide: Exploring Mass Attitudes in Muslim Majority Countries
Ashley Anderson is an assistant professor at the University of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. Her research interests are in comparative politics, with a focus on authoritarianism, Middle Eastern political development, and contentious politics. Her first book investigates variation in political mobilization among unions in Tunisia and Morocco, while related projects focus on the role of the ICTs in facilitating protest mobilization and the use of protest strategies by authoritarian incumbents. Her newest works focus on the growth of Islamist ideologies in the Middle East and developing new conceptual models of authoritarianism.
March 29, 2021: Nazita Lajevardi, Michigan State University
Reject, Limbo, and Accept: The Effect of Migration Decisions on Asylum Seekers
Nazita Lajevardi is an assistant professor in the Department of Political Science at Michigan State University. She received her PhD from UCSD in 2017, her JD from the University of San Francisco School of Law in 2012, and her BA from UCLA in 2009. Her work focuses mainly on issues related to race and ethnic politics, political behavior, voting rights, and immigration. Her work has been published in venues such as Cambridge University Press, the Journal of Politics, American Political Science Review, Political Behavior, Journal of Race and Ethnic Politics, and Politics Groups and Identities, among others.
March 1, 2021: Ainsley LeSure, Occidental College
Thoughts on the World, the Black and the Political
Ainsley LeSure (PhD, University of Chicago, Political Science, 2015) is an Assistant Professor of Africana Studies and specializes in political theory with a particular focus on the critical theory of race and racism, social justice, democratic theory, Black political thought and feminist theory. Her current book project, tentatively titled, Locating Racism in the World: Toward an Anti-Racist Reality, reconceptualizes racism in the post-Civil Rights era. Specifically, the book calls for a shift away from framing post-Civil Rights racism as either unconscious or institutional and toward a worldly account of racism that offers a better conception of the relationship between its individual and collective determinants.February 15, 2021: Chryl Laird, Bowdoin College
The Effect of Social Networks on Black Women’s Partisanship and Candidate Support
Chryl N. Laird received her PhD from The Ohio State University in 2014 and is currently an Assistant Professor of Government and Legal Studies at Bowdoin College. She studies American politics with a focus on black political behavior and public opinion. She has published scholarship in a number of academic journals including the American Political Science Review, American Politics Research, and Politics, Groups and Identities. Her most recent work is her co-authored book, Steadfast Democrats: How Social Forces Shape Black Political Behavior published with Princeton University Press. Her research and commentary have been featured in a number of news outlets including The Atlantic, The Washington Post, New York Times, NPR, CNN, and MSNBC.
February 1, 2021: Alex Haskins, Wheaton College
“Of the Meaning of Progress” – DuBois on Leadership, Japan, and Global Democracy
Alex Haskins currently holds the rank of Assistant Professor of Politics and International Relations at Wheaton College (IL). He earned his PhD from the University of Chicago, his MA from Harvard University, and his BA from Bowdoin College. Trained as a political theorist and historian of political thought, his research and teaching interests center on the complex histories of imperialism, colonialism, and Christianity in the modern world—particularly in Africa, the Americas, and Asia—and what implications such grappling might have for global justice, international law, multiculturalism, and global missions. He is currently revising his book manuscript on the “glocalization” of non-domination in the political thought of Montesquieu (1689-1755), Wei Yuan (1794-1856), and W.E.B. DuBois (1868-1963).
