A&S in the News – Nov. 19-25

GEORGE HAWLEY: Win or lose, Trump’s candidacy will have lasting impact on conservatism
Missourian – Nov. 8
Hours before polls closed on Tuesday, George Hawley, assistant professor of political science at the University of Alabama, joked that he was analyzing the future of the American Right “three or four hours too early.” Hawley, whose research interests include conservative movements and electoral behavior, presented Tuesday afternoon as the second half of a National Endowment for the Humanities push to bring influential speakers to campuses across the country. In his lecture, Hawley explored different aspects of Donald Trump’s presidential candidacy and what it means for the conservative movement.

Alabama’s Continuing Drought
WVUA 23 – Nov. 14
Dr. Sagy Cohen, assistant professor in the Department of Geography at the University of Alabama, discusses the causes of Alabama’s current drought, and how long it might stretch into the winter.

Why the ‘experts’ got it wrong on Trump
World News Daily – Nov. 20
The polls predicted a Hillary Clinton victory. The pundits were certain she would win. Even a once-confident Donald Trump campaign staff was nervous about its chances as commentators confidently anticipated a second Clinton administration after the polls began to close. Yet it was Donald Trump who defeated Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential campaign, shocking the so-called experts. . . . One of the few people who did get it right was George Hawley, an assistant professor of political silence at the University of Alabama. Alone in his department, he accurately forecast Donald Trump would win the election and even correctly predicted how 48 states would vote. Hawley, author of “Right Wing Critics of American Conservatism,” said most journalists and pundits will likely learn nothing from their humiliation.

What the alt-right really wants, according to a professor writing a book about them
Washington Post – Nov. 22
Who makes up this movement, and what exactly are they trying to accomplish? George Hawley, a political scientist at the University of Alabama, has been interviewing people in the movement and is writing a book about it. He spoke with The Washington Post about what he had learned. A transcript of the interview is below, edited for length. What is the alt-right, and what do members want? It is predominantly an online phenomenon, and amorphous and somewhat diverse in terms of what the people who associate with the movement want, but really the core of the alt-right is white nationalism — or, at least, white identity politics. That’s what the people who are really pushing that movement forward stand for, even if not everyone who identifies with the alt-right or is an alt-right fellow traveler is fully on board with that message.

Book talk set next week at Archives and History
Andalusia Star News – Nov. 22
On Wed., Nov. 30, at noon, Ed Bridges will present a book talk on his new bicentennial history Alabama: The Making of an American State at the Alabama Department of Archives and History (ADAH) in Montgomery. Alabama: The Making of an American State, released in the fall of 2016 by the University of Alabama Press, is a comprehensive, beautifully illustrated new resource for anyone seeking a broad understanding of Alabama history. With the approaching bicentennial of statehood in 2019, this book offers a fresh perspective on the unique social, political, economic, and cultural forces that have shaped our state. Bridges began work on the book soon after he retired as Director Emeritus from the ADAH in 2012 after serving 30 years as director. However, thinking about the structure and interpretive approach began much earlier as he was guiding the agency’s work in designing new Museum of Alabama exhibits. His purpose, Bridges said, was to offer a new resource for the bicentennial period because “our understanding of the past serves as a framework that guides us in the decisions that we make about the future.”