January 2024 Lectures

LOCATION

January lectures will be held online via Zoom Webinar from 10:00-11:00 AM. View each description below to see the date of the lecture.

RESERVATIONS

Reservations are not required for any online lectures  We will send the Zoom link the morning of each lecture to those subscribed to the newsletter. 

LECTURES

Craig Gilbert, A Look at America's Ultimate Swing-state: The Presidential Battleground of Wisconsin
Monday, January 8
10:00–11:00 AM 
Online

Craig Gilbert is a political columnist for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel and a Lubar Fellow at the Marquette Law School. Gilbert served as the Journal Sentinel’s Washington Bureau Chief for more than 20 years. He has covered every presidential campaign since 1988 and chronicled Wisconsin’s role as the nation’s most enduring electoral battleground. Gilbert has written extensively about the battle for the swing states of the industrial Midwest, the region’s shifting political map, its increasingly polarized political culture, and the deepening urban-rural divide. His work has been recognized by Editor & Publisher, the National Press Foundation, the National Headliner Awards, the Milwaukee Press Club, and the Columbia Journalism Review, which called him the “most political science friendly reporter in America.”

Gilbert was a Knight-Wallace fellow at the University of Michigan and a writer in residence at the University of Wisconsin. He is a past and current fellow at the Marquette Law School’s Lubar Center, where he works with pollster Charles Franklin, analyzing polling and voting trends. Gilbert previously worked for the Miami Herald, the Kingston (NY) Daily Freeman, and was a speechwriter for New York Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan. He has a BA in history from Yale University.    

Dee Davis, Rural America and the 2024 Election
Thursday, January 11
10:00–11:00 AM 
Online

Dee Davis is the founder and president of the Center for Rural Strategies. Dee has helped design and lead national public information campaigns on topics as diverse as commercial television programming and federal banking policy. Dee began his media career in 1973 as a trainee at Appalshop, an arts and cultural center devoted to exploring Appalachian life and social issues in Whitesburg, Kentucky.

Dee is on the board of the Kentucky Historical Society. He is a member of the Rural Advisory Committee of the Local Initiatives Support Corporation, Fund for Innovative Television, and Feral Arts of Brisbane, Australia. He is also a member of the Institute for Rural Journalism’s national advisory board. He is a member of the Board of Directors for the Institute for Work and the Economy. Dee is a member of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences commission on the Practice of Democratic Citizenship. Dee is also the former Chair of the board of directors of Mary Reynolds Babcock Foundation.

Keith Wiley, Demographic Change, Economic Distress, and Uncertain Times: A Closer Look at the Data
Tuesday, January 16
10:00–11:00 AM
Online

Keith Wiley, Senior Research Associate at the Housing Assistance Council, is a main author of Taking Stock, HAC’s report on poverty in the US. He has worked extensively with many datasets in an effort to better understand where, when, and how development patterns occur. As part of these efforts, Keith has authored a recent article in the Journal of Housing Policy Debate, entitled “The Role of the CDBG Program in Rural America” and has written several reports analyzing rural lending activities. He also coauthored both a book chapter in The Oxford Handbook of Urban Economics and Planning and a “Resources for the Future” discussion paper exploring residential infill. Keith holds a master’s degree in public policy from American University and a PhD in Public Policy from the University of Maryland-Baltimore County.

Maureen Corrigan, Banned in the USA
Friday, January 19
10:00–11:00 AM
Online

Maureen Corrigan is The Nicky and Jamie Grant Distinguished Professor of the Practice in Literary Criticism at Georgetown University. She is an associate editor of and contributor to Mystery and Suspense Writers (Scribner) and the winner of the 1999 Edgar Award for Criticism, presented by the Mystery Writers of America. In 2019, Corrigan was awarded the Nona Balakian Citation for Excellence in Reviewing by the National Book Critics Circle.

Corrigan served as a juror for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction. She is the author of So We Read On: How the Great Gatsby Came To Be and Why It Endures (Little, Brown, 2014). Corrigan's literary memoir, Leave Me Alone, I'm Reading! was published in 2005. Corrigan is also a reviewer and columnist for National Public Radio and The Washington Post. In addition to serving on the advisory panel of The American Heritage Dictionary, she has chaired the Mystery and Suspense judges' panel of the Los Angeles Times Book Prize.