Beyond Your News Feed: Understanding Contemporary Politics

Host Dr. Hudson discusses the 2024 election with PC political science professors Dr. Myers and Dr. Cammarano.  Our conversation reviews that factors that led to Donald Trump’s victory and the Republican gains in the Senate and House.  We consider what to expect from a Trump presidency.

Host William Hudson discusses the 2024 election with PC political science professors Adam Myers and Joe Cammarano. They review the astonishing events of this election season since last June, consider the strategies of both the Trump and Harris campaigns, and analyze why the election is so close and what it tells us about the overall state of American politics.

Host William Hudson is joined by Professor Andrea McDonnell, Associate Professor of Political Science and Director of PC’s Communication Program to discuss her new research. Dr. McDonnell has been a guest on this podcast previously to discuss the decline of local news and her 2023 book A Gossip Politic . In today’s podcast she discusses her more recent work on what she calls "discursive self-cleav...

Although most of us associate the People’s Republic of China (the PRC) with its officially sanctioned atheism, the government tolerates a variety of religious practice within the country. Regulating and controlling religious practice to assure that it does not pose a threat to the dominance of either the Chinese state or the ruling Chinese Communist Party is an on-going challenge to both party and...

This episode features, Zachariah Wheeler, Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science at Providence College. We discuss his research on the evolution in coalitions within the Democratic Party, how elite discourse about class, race, climate change, and other issues have shaped those coalitions, and the way these changes reflect the impact neo-liberal ideology and globalization has had on Amer...

This episode features Gizem Zencirci, Associate Professor of Political Science and her new book: The Muslim Social: Neoliberalism, Charity, and Poverty in Turkey published by Syracuse University Press. In this book, she explains how Turkey’s ruling party and other Turkish actors have melded modern neo-liberal reforms and traditional understandings of Islamic charity to create a form of public welf...

Professors Joe Cammarano and Adam Myers join Beyond Your News Feed host William Hudson for a wide-ranging conversation about the 2024 presidential election campaigns. We examine the challenges both the Biden and Trump campaigns will face in earning the votes of Americans. Our analysis includes an assessment of what is at stake for the future of American democracy in this election.

Host William Hudson discusses the current Israeli-Palestinian crisis with two political science colleagues who are experts on Israel and its long conflict with the Palestinians.  We focus on how Americans have reacted to the conflict, particularly the American Jewish community.

Professor Adam Myers joins host William Hudson to discuss federalism’s impact on American democracy. Jacob M. Grumbach’s recent book: Laboratories against Democracy: How National Parties Transformed State Politics offers the touchstone for this discussion. Grumbach addresses a perennial issue in the analysis of American politics – whether the federal system advances or undermines democratic values...

This episode features a conversation with the Providence College Political Science Department’s Chinese politics expert, Professor Susan McCarthy. For several months, now, China has been in the news a lot whether in reports on the Chinese regime’s response to COVID, authoritarian crackdowns on political dissidents and ethnic minorities, the recent Party Congress that extended President Xi’s term i...

For this episode, we were pleased to welcome to Beyond Your News Feed the newest member of the PC Political Science faculty Assistant Professor Sara Hassani. Dr. Hassani joined the faculty last fall after completing her PH.D. at the New School for Social Research. She as a joint appointment in Political Science and Women’s Studies. In our conversation we talked about the courses she has taught so...

Podcast host, William Hudson, invites back to the podcast the Providence College Political Science Departments expert on all this Israeli, Professor Ruth Ben-Artzi, to discuss recent events in Israel and Palestine. Our wide ranging conversation covers the electoral turmoil of the past four years that produced four elections, the reemergence of Benyamin Netanyahu as Prime Minister after last Novemb...

This episode takes a deep dive into the results of the 2022 midterm elections. Professors Matt Guardino and Adam Myers join host, William Hudson, to discuss key national and state races. They focus particularly on why the expected "Red Wave"- overwhelming victories for the Republican Party- did not happen. The conversation does beyond the usual journalistic analysis of the election to offer insigh...

In September, Iran's morality police arrested a 22-year-old Iranian woman, Masha Amini, for violating rules regarding proper wearing of the hijab, a hair covering required of all women in public. A few days later, her family was informed that Ms. Amini had died in police custody, supposedly from a heart attack, although her family claimed she had died from blows to her head. In the weeks since, pr...

This episode features our knowledgeable and insightful team of American politics experts, Professor Adam Myers and Professor Matt Guardino to discuss the state of American politics this summer of 2022.  The last few weeks have produced a variety of interesting topics for us to talk about – all with implications for the upcoming midterm national elections this fall.  Most directly, states across th...

America has often prided itself as a nation of immigrants.  Apart from indigenous peoples, Americans generally are descended from someone who came to this country from somewhere else.  Despite this history, in recent years, many Americans have shown growing hostility toward immigrants.  Politicians like Donald Trump have fueled and capitalized on this hostility in their anti-immigrant rhetoric.  I...

On this episode of Beyond Your News Feed, Dr. Bill Hudson is joined by Associate Professor of Communication and Director of PC’s new Communication Program Professor Andrea McDonnell. She and Dr. Hudson Talk about the dissolution of the line between “celebrity” and “politician,” the prevalence of gossip as opposed to substantive information, and the role that the internet—particularly social media...

Today’s guest on Beyond Your News Feed, Professor Casey Stevens, sits down with Dr. Bill Hudson to discuss the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) conducted on April 1st. Stevens, whose expertise lies in environmental politics, discusses the report’s contents, its implications for combatting climate change, and the current political conditions as well as scientific findings tha...

On this week's episode of Beyond Your News Feed, three Political Science seniors were asked to share their experiences with their capstone research seminars. Two of the seniors in attendance, Malik Alwani and Addison Wakelin, completed their respective seminars—Globalization and Economic Development and Climate Change—last semester. The third student (and podcast co-producer), Sienna Strickland, i...

This year Providence College is celebrating the fiftieth anniversary of the first class of women students at the college.  Since 1971 when the college became coed, the Political Science department has had many terrific women students and our women graduates have gone on to distinguished careers in a wide variety of professions.  Some have even pleased their political science professors immensely b...

Can political philosophy help us understand what ails American Democracy? Host Professor William Hudson explores this question with guest Assistant Professor of Political Science Justin Brophy. We examine the question with special attention to the ancient Greek philosopher Plato and the contemporary American political theorist the late Carey McWilliams – two thinkers who have greatly influenced Fr...

This episode explores the tension within American conservative thought between Traditional Burkean conservatism and classical liberalism.  Host William Hudson discusses this tension with Providence College Visiting Assistant Professor of Political Science Savannah Johnston.  Her recent scholarly work suggests that the “fusion” between these theoretical tendencies worked out in the National Review...

We apologize for the technical problem with the recent upload of this episode. Episode is now ready for your listening enjoyment. It is a good one! Host William Hudson and his guests, Professors Adam Myers and Matt Guardino, take a comprehensive look at American politics about one year after the 2020 election. The discussion encompasses the results of the recent “off-year elections” in Virginia an...

This episode of Beyond Your News Feed explores the fate of local news. Professors Andrea McDonnell and Matt Guardino of the Providence College Political Science Department join host William Hudson for a conversation about the dire straits of local newspapers and the impact on American democracy. Over the past couple of decades, local newspapers across the country have begun to disappear. Battered...

For this episode, the tables are turned on Beyond Your News Feed’s normal host, Professor William Hudson.  Guest host Professor Adam Myers interviews Hudson about federal budgetary politics.  Budget issues are very much in the news these days with Democrats internally divided over President Biden’s proposals for increased spending on physical and social infrastructure and Republicans, once again,...