Politics

Although many commentators have suggested parallels between the Vietnam War and President George W. Bush‘s anticipated decision to increase the military presence in Iraq, in truth Bush‘s situation is without a clear precedent from that earlier conflict, according to Thomas Alan Schwartz, professor of history at Vanderbilt. Read More

Constance Rice, Rita Sanders Geier and Cordelia Taylor, three African-American women dedicated to making a difference in their communities, will speak at Vanderbilt University Monday, Jan. 15.Their lectures ñ Taylor's at noon, Geier's at 3:30 p.m. and Rice's at 6:30 p.m. ñ help kick off the university's 2007 Martin Luther King Jr. Commemorative Series scheduled Jan. 15-23. This year's series' theme is "Living the Legacy: Inquiries into Inclusion (Who's In and Who's Out)." All series events are free and open to the public. Read More

Vanderbilt University Law Professor Mike Newton is an expert on the Saddam Hussein trial and has just returned from his fourth trip to Iraq. Read More

The challenges of evaluating the moral complexities of people‘s actions in war — military and civilian — propelled Vanderbilt University historian Michael Bess to write about World War II, a conflict that he said is too often depicted in morally simplistic terms. Read More

Election outcome helps put to rest one of the oft cited pieces of conventional wisdom about negative campaigning -- that attack advertising depresses turnout, says John Geer, professor of political science. Read More

In a memorable conclusion to their series of U.S. senatorial debates, Democrat Congressman Harold Ford Jr. and Republican Bob Corker battled Oct. 28 at Vanderbilt‘s Ingram Hall in a question-and-answer-format town hall forum. Read More

Vanderbilt experts are available to discuss negative ads, the 2008 presidential election, the war in Iraq and more in relation to Tennessee‘s pivotal Senate race. The candidates, Democrat Harold Ford Jr. and Republican Bob Corker, met at the university on Oct. 28 in a live televised town hall forum. Read More

In a key race with national implications, Tennessee‘s U.S. Senate candidates will meet one last time before the mid-term elections at a live televised town hall forum Saturday, Oct. 28, at Vanderbilt University. Democrat Harold Ford Jr. and Republican Bob Corker will answer audience questions, pre-screened by the League of Women Voters, at the forum at Vanderbilt‘s Ingram Hall from 7 to 8 p.m. NewsChannel 5, WTVF-TV, the League of Women Voters of Tennessee and Vanderbilt University are sponsoring the forum that will be offered to CBS affiliates throughout the state. Non-CBS stations in the state can record the program off air from the CBS affiliate in your city. Read More

Youth leaders from across Nashville will converge at the Vanderbilt Law School Sunday, Oct. 15, for the forum, "Youth Engagement as a Strategy for Youth Development and Community Change." Read More

Vanderbilt University's "Meet the Candidates" community picnic on Oct. 6 is expected to be one of the area's largest and most festive political gatherings prior to the Nov. 7 election. The picnic provides an excellent opportunity for Vanderbilt's students, faculty and staff as well as the university's neighbors, to learn more about the campaigns. Read More

The stage is set for Shinzo Abe to become Japan's new Prime Minister Sept. 26 following his election as the leader of the country's ruling party. Read More

Kevin Klose, president and chief executive officer of National Public Radio (NPR), will speak Sept. 27 at Vanderbilt University Law School. Read More

On the recent fifth anniversary of 9/11, Americans faced anew a choice between fear and compassion. Five years have passed since that bright blue, cloudless, horrific morning. Since then it has become a truism to say that American life has changed unalterably. In the coming weeks, politicians and pundits will pontificate about how 9/11 changed American life. But a prior, more basic question will remain unasked: Why should that day change the very fabric of our common life? Should heightened security concerns corrode our national character? Must it lessen who we are? Read More

From adolescence on, I heard a constant refrain from my Indian father: "Don't ever believe that you're really American." I found his advice peculiar, especially as I had been living in America since age 8 and had largely forgotten my time in India. To him, it didn't matter that the only language in which I could think a complex thought was English. It didn't matter that the only music I listened to was Michael Jackson, the Bee Gees and Billy Joel. Read More

As chair of the Democratic Party in Smithville — not to mention choir director of the First United Methodist Church — Faye Fuqua generally knows what's going on around town. Read More

U.S. Senate candidates Harold Ford Jr. and Bob Corker will square off for a statewide televised debate at Vanderbilt University's Ingram Hall Oct. 28. Read More

Feelings of grief, anger and vulnerability over the 9/11 terrorist attacks five years ago remain strong for most Americans, according to James Booth, a Vanderbilt University professor of political science and philosophy. Read More

Finding the line between interpreting laws and making them has been an issue for America since its founding, and concerns about "legislating from the bench" crop up regularly. Read More

Fidel Castro's serious illness could signal bumpy times ahead for the Cuban government: "When you have dictatorships that revolve around the persona of one individual, they tend to be very brittle," according to political scientist Mitchell Seligson. Read More

The proposed trip of Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the Middle East will undoubtedly encourage many to draw parallels to Henry Kissinger's famed shuttle diplomacy after the Yom Kippur War in October 1973, according to Vanderbilt University Professor of History Thomas Alan Schwartz. Read More