Scholars’ Circle – Partisan Congress/ US Penal System – Aug. 10th, 2014

First, is the US House Speaker Newt Gingrich responsible for damaging the culture and productivity of the US Senate? An interview with Sean Theriault, author of,The Gingrich Senators: The Roots of Partisan Warfare in Congress. [ dur: 29 mins. ]

  • Sean Theriault is a Professor in the Department of Government at the University of Texas at Austin. He is the author of, The Power of the People: Congressional Competition, Public Attention, and Voter Retribution, Party Polarization in Congress, and The Gingrich Senators: The Roots of Partisan Warfare in Congress.

Then, on the Scholars’ Circle panel,how did a country born of freedom come to have the largest penal system in the world and lock up so many of its citizens? What is the cost of this system on society in terms of human lives, and sociopolitical and economic well-being? [ dur: 29 mins. ]

  • Marie Gottschalk is a Professor in the Department of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of, The Prison and the Gallows: The Politics of Mass Incarceration in America and The Shadow Welfare State: Labor, Business, and the Politics of Health Care in the United States.
  • Robert Perkinson is an Associate Professor of American Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. He is the author of, Texas Tough: The Rise of America’s Prison Empire.
  • David Garland is a Professor of Law and Professor of Sociology at New York University. He is the author of, Peculiar Institution: America’s Death Penalty in an Age of Abolition, The Culture of Control: Crime and Social Order in Contemporary Society, and Punishment and Modern Society: A Study in Social Theory.

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