On March 27-30, 2002 the Interdisciplinary Humanities Center (IHC) at the University of California, Santa Barbara (UCSB) will host an international conference on the history of the presidency of Ronald Reagan. Other sponsors include Vanderbilt University, the College of Letters and Science at UCSB, UCSB's departments of History, Political Science, and Economics, the Institute of Governmental Studies at the University of California, Berkeley (http://www.igs.berkeley.edu:8880/), the All-University of California Group in Economic History, The University Press of Kansas, and Young America's Foundation: The Reagan Ranch.

The goal of the conference is to promote a "second-generation" scholarly assessment of the Reagan administration.

The organizers of the conference are W. Elliot Brownlee, Professor of History at UCSB, and Hugh Davis Graham, the Holland N. McTyeire Professor of History and Professor of Political Science at Vanderbilt University.

Professors Brownlee and Graham called for scholars in history, political science, economics, and other disciplines in the humanities and social sciences to submit proposals for papers to be delivered at the conference. The strong response to the call has enabled the organizers to assemble a large array of papers and panels on a wide range of topics. See below for the list of papers and panelists.

Click here for conference schedule

Click here to download the Program of Events for the Reagan Conference
(Adobe Acrobat required - 284KB)

For further information, contact Professor Brownlee at brownlee@history.ucsb.edu

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IDEAS AND RHETORIC

Chair and Discussant: Richard J. Ellis, Willamette University

Terri Bimes, University of California, Berkeley, "The Limits of GOP Populism: A Case Study of Ronald Reagan's Rhetoric"

Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, Copenhagen Business School, "Gaining Ground: Assessing the Influence of Conservative Policy-Planning Organizations in the Reagan Years"

Hugh Heclo, George Mason University, "Ronald Reagan and America's Search for a Public Philosophy"

THE CONSERVATIVE PRESIDENCY

Chair and Discussant: Nelson Lichtenstein, University of California, Santa Barbara

Ted V. McAllister, Pepperdine University, "Ronald Reagan and the Transformation of American Conservatism"

Bruce J. Schulman, Boston University, "The Reagan Revolution in International Perspective: Conservative Assaults on the Welfare State across the Industrialized World in the 1980s"

John W. Sloan, University of Houston, "The Decision-Making Styles of Two Reconstructive Presidents: Franklin Roosevelt and Ronald Reagan"

Discussant: Stephen Knott, Miller Center of Public Affairs, University of Virginia

SYMBOLISM AND LEADERSHIP

Chair and Discussant: Martha Joynt Kumar, White House 2001 Project and Towson University

Randall E. Adkins, University of Nebraska at Omaha, and Gary L. Gregg, University of Louisville, "The Healer in Chief: Ronald Reagan, the Symbolic Presidency and the Challenger Disaster"

Philip Jenkins, Pennsylvania State University, "The Rhetoric of Generational Threats in Reagan Era Conservatism"

John K. White, The Catholic University of America, "The New Politics of Old Values"

POPULARITY AND PERSONALITY

Chair and Discussant: Terri Bimes, University of California Berkeley

Tim H. Blessing and Anne Skleder, Alvernia College, "Remeasuring the Reagan Years: The New Blessing-Skelder Survey"

Steven J. Rubenzer, Mental Health & Mental Retardation Authority of Harris County, Thomas R. Faschingbauer, Fort Bend County Juvenile Probation Department, and Deniz S. Ones, University of Minnesota, "Ronald Reagan's Test Report: A Historiometric Explication of The Great Communicator's Personality"

POLITICAL ALIGNMENTS

Chair and Discussant: Eric R. Smith, University of California, Santa Barbara

Juan Jose Cruz, University of La Laguna, "And the Struggle Was Lost: Hollywood and the American Working Classes in the Reagan Years"

Gregory L. Schneider, Emporia State University, "Conservatives and the Reagan Presidency, 1981-2001"

THE CHRISTIAN RIGHT

Chair and Discussant: Duane Oldfield, Knox College

Aaron Haberman, University of South Carolina, "The Bob Jones University Tax-Exemption Case of 1982-1983"

Craig Kaplowitz, Middle Tennessee State University, "Reagan and the Religious Right: Redefining the Republican Party and Conservatism in American Politics"

David John Marley, George Washington University, Ronald Reagan and the Splintering of the Christian Right"

CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS I

Chair and Discussant: Barbara Sinclair, University of California, Los Angeles

Casey Byrne Knudsen Dominguez, University of California, Berkeley, "The President's Honeymoon with Congress: Explaining Reagan's 1981 Victories"

Samuel B. Hoff, Delaware State University, "'Make My Day' and 'Read My Lips': Comparing the Veto Record of Presidents Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush"

CONGRESSIONAL RELATIONS II

Chair and Discussant: Mark Petracca, University of California, Irvine

Richard S. Conley, University of Florida, "President Reagan, White House Lobbying, and Key Votes: A Reassessment"

Allison Wegner Leof, University of California, Berkeley, "Sowing the Seeds of Conflict: How Ronald Reagan's Appointments changed the Nature of the Senate Confirmation Process."

Andrew Rudalevige, Dickinson College, "Presidential Management and the Politicized Presidency: Reagan and Centralization"

JUDICIAL STRATEGY

Chair and Discussant: Fred P. Graham, Court TV

David M. O'Brien, University of Virginia, "The 'Reagan Revolution' and the Federal Judiciary"

Lou Cannon, "Reagan's Appointments to the Judiciary"

Paul Chen, University of Southern California, "Assessing the Impact of Reagan's Judicial Appointments on the Supreme Court's Federalism Jurisprudence since Garcia"

CIVIL RIGHTS

Chair and Discussant: John David Skrentny, University of California, San Diego

Hugh Davis Graham, Vanderbilt University, "Ambivalent Revolutionaries: Civil Rights Policy in the Reagan Presidency"

William B. Turner, St. Cloud State University, "Ronald Reagan and the 'American Way of Life' at the End of the Cold War: The Case of Lesbian/Gay Civil Rights"

WOMEN'S RIGHTS: REPRODUCTIVE RIGHTS

Chair and Discussant: Eileen Boris, University of California, Santa Barbara

Donald Critchlow, Saint Louis University, "Mobilizing Women: Ronald Reagan, Social Issues, and the Revival of the Conservative Movement"

Steven B. McNutt, Vanderbilt University, "The Strange New Game of Politics: Abortion and the Battle over the Civil Rights Restoration Act in the Reagan Presidency

WOMEN'S RIGHTS: TITLE IX

Chair and Discussant: Mary Ellen Gale, Whittier Law School

Carole E. Bucy, Volunteer State Community College, "The Politics of Women: Title IX in the Reagan Administration"

Rosalyn Cooperman, Vanderbilt University, "Ronald Reagan, the Congressional Caucus for Women's Issues and the Civil Rights Restoration Act"

IMMIGRATION POLICY

Chair and Discussant: Peter Skerry, Claremont McKenna College

Otis L. Graham, Jr., University of North Carolina-Wilmington, "Failing the Test: Immigration and Immigration Policy in the Reagan Years"

Thomas R. Maddux, California State University, Northridge, "The Reagan White House and Immigration: The Task Force on Immigration and Refugee Policy, 1981"

THE ENVIRONMENT

Chair and Discussant: Norris Hundley, University of California, Los Angeles

Stephen J. DeCanio, University of California, Santa Barbara, "The Reagan Administration and the Montreal Protocol"

Jeffrey K. Stine, National Museum of American History, Smithsonian Institution, "Environmental Policy during the Reagan Administration"

ECONOMIC POLICY I

Chair and Discussant: John Woolley, University of California, Santa Barbara

Michael R. Adamson, Office for History of Science and Technology at the University of California, Berkeley, "The
Reagan White House and the Air Traffic Controllers Strike"

Michael A. Bernstein, University of California, San Diego, "Deregulation and its Discontents: The Other Legacy of Reaganomics"

M. Stephen Weatherford and Lorraine M. McDonnell, University of California, Santa Barbara, "Political Ideology Meets Economic Theory in the Reagan Years"

ECONOMIC POLICY II

Chair and Discussant: Steven M. Sheffrin, University of California, Davis

W. Elliot Brownlee, University of California, Santa Barbara, and Eugene Steuerle, The Urban Institute, “The President as Accidental Reformer: Tax Policy during the Reagan Administration”

Martha Derthick and Steven M. Teles, University of Virginia, "Reagan and Social Security"

WELFARE POLICY

Chair and Discussant: Jonathan Zasloff, University of California, Los Angeles

Gareth B. Davies, Oxford University, "Reagan and the Welfare State"

Alice O'Connor, University of California, Santa Barbara, "The Reagan 'Blueprint' for Welfare Reform"

EDUCATION: OVERVIEW

Chair and Discussant: Nancy Diamond, Pennsylvania State University

Dick M. Carpenter, Colorado Christian University, "The Education President? How Ronald Reagan Redefined the "Education President"

Daniel Cook, CUNY Graduate Center, "Excellence in Education: "The Administrative Presidency and Public Education under Reagan"

John A. Douglass, University of California, Berkeley, "Big Science, the Economy, and Higher Education Policy during the Reagan Presidency"

EDUCATION: REAGAN AND THE PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Chair and Discussant: Catherine Lugg, Rutgers University

David Pierpont Gardner and Milton Goldberg, Education Commission of the States, "'A Nation at Risk' and the Reagan
Presidency"

Lawrence J. McAndrews, St. Norbert College, "Turning Point: Ronald Reagan and Elementary and Secondary Education"

THE COLD WAR

Chair and Discussant: Fredrik Logevall, University of California, Santa Barbara

Sheldon Anderson, Miami University, "Reagan, Star Wars, and the Fall of Communism"

Beth A. Fischer, University of Toronto, "Reagan and the Soviets: Waging and Winning the Cold War?"

NATIONAL SECURITY POLICY

Chair and Discussant: Samuel F. Wells, Jr., The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Malcolm Byrne, George Washington University, "Reagan and Iran-Contra"

Chester J. Pach, Jr., Ohio University, "Symbolic Defense: The Political Uses of National Security Policy during the Reagan Administration"

John Prados, "National Security Politics and Intelligence Perceptions during the Reagan Years: The Case of Soviet Military Power"

THE WESTERN ALLIANCE

Chair and Discussant: Anna Nelson, American University

Thomas Schwartz, Vanderbilt University, "The Reagan Administration, Alliance Politics, and the INF Negotiations"

Samuel F. Wells, Jr., The Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars, "Reagan, Euromissles, and Europe"

HUMAN RIGHTS ABROAD: THE CASE OF CENTRAL AMERICA AND THE CARIBBEAN

Chair and Discussant: Hector Lindo-Fuentes, Fordham University

Derek N. Buckaloo, Emory University, "The Shadow of Vietnam and Ronald Reagan's War on Language and Nicaragua"

Mario T. Garcia, University of California, Santa Barbara, "Civic Religion in the Age of Reagan: The U.S. Catholic Church and the Central American Refugee Crisis"

Institute of Governmental Studies (IGS)


Interdisciplinary Humanities Center