Join Natalie Tracy as she makes a case for the lasting importance and relevance of Emily Bronte's Wuthering Heights.

Natalie Tracy leads the strategic and tactical marketing and communications initiatives for the McConnell Center. In this role, she collaborates with Dr. Gary Gregg and other team members to design and coordinate the academic and programmatic endeavors of the McConnell Scholars.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join Matthew Denhart for a discussion regarding the Autobiography of Calvin Coolidge.

Matthew Denhart serves as president of the Coolidge Foundation. At the Coolidge Foundation, Mr. Denhart has led the development of the Coolidge Scholarship and several other initiatives aimed at sharing the lessons and values of President Coolidge with a broad national audience.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join Dr. Kirstin Birkhaug for a discussion centered around the work of Phillis Wheatley, an American writer who is considered the first African-American author of a published book of poetry.

Kirstin Anderson Birkhaug (PhD, University of Wisconsin-Madison) is assistant professor of political science at Hope College, where she teaches Introduction to American Politics, State and Local Government, and all upper-level political theory courses, including American Political and Social Thought, Ancient and Medieval Political Thought, Modern Political Thought, and Contemporary Political Thought. Dr. Birkhaug is also a member of the Emmaus Scholars faculty and the faculty advisor for the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Leadership Fellows Program at Hope College. She joined the Department of Political Science in 2023.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join W.S. Tkweme for a discussion regarding the importance of studying Malcom X.

W.S. Tkweme is Director of Graduate Studies in the University of Louisville Pan-African Studies Dept. He teaches courses on various aspeects of black music and post-World War II cultural and political initiatives. He has also served as the Pan-African Studies department's director of graduate studies since 2019.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join Jeff Polet, PhD for a discussion regarding the importance of Rousseau's Confessions.

Jeff Polet is Professor of Political Science Emeritus at Hope College and currently director of The Ford Leadership Forum at the Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation. He also serves as a Senior Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal. He is currently writing a book that reinterprets "The Federalist" in light of Anti-federalists arguments against ratification of the Constitution.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join the #McConnellCenter as we welcome Kevin Hayes, PhD for a discussion on the work and life of Hunter S. Thompson.

Born and raised in Toledo, Ohio, Kevin J. Hayes spent his twenties living the life of a bike bum, but he eventually went to graduate school at the University of Delaware, graduating with his PhD in English in 1991. After graduation, he became a professor at the University of Central Oklahoma, retiring in 2015 and moving home to Toledo, where he keeps busy reading, writing, and riding his bicycle. He has published numerous books during his career, including The Road to Monticello: The Life and Mind of Thomas Jefferson; George Washington: A Life in Books, for which he received the George Washington Prize; and Undaunted Mind: The Intellectual Life of Benjamin Franklin.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join Mark C Meade for a discussion regarding the importance of The Seven Storey Mountain by Thomas Merton.

Mark C. Meade is the Assistant Director of the Thomas Merton Center at Bellarmine University. In over 20 years at the Center as an archivist, he has assisted scholars from around the world while himself presenting and publishing internationally on Merton's writings. Mark served as the sixteenth president of the International Thomas Merton Society. His scholarship has focused on Merton's autobiography and dialogue with the writings of Victoria Ocampo, Albert Camus, and Flannery O'Connor.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join the #McConnellCenter as we welcome Nicholas Buccola, PhD for the Capt. Daniel H. Utley Memorial Lecture, a talk entitled "One Man's Freedom: Goldwater, King and the Struggle over an American Ideal."

Nicholas Buccola is a writer, lecturer, and teacher who specializes in the area of American political thought. He is the author of One Man's Freedom: Goldwater, King, and the Struggle over an American Ideal, which will be published by Princeton University Press in October 2025. His previous books include The Fire Is upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (Princeton University Press, 2019) and The Political Thought of Frederick Douglass: In Pursuit of American Liberty (New York University Press, 2012). He is the editor of The Essential Douglass: Writings and Speeches (Hackett, 2016) and Abraham Lincoln and Liberal Democracy (University Press of Kansas, 2016).

Nicholas is the Dr. Jules K. Whitehill Professor of Humanism and Ethics in the Department of Government at Claremont McKenna College. His essays have appeared in scholarly journals including The Review of Politics and American Political Thought as well as popular outlets such as The New York Times, Salon, The Baltimore Sun, and Dissent.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join #McConnellCenter scholars for a presentation from Dr Blanco explaining the importance of Hayek's work and how to understand it in modern times.

Abby Hall Blanco is an Associate Professor in Economics at the University of Tampa in Tampa, Florida. She is a Senior Affiliated Scholar with the Mercatus Center at George Mason University and a Senior Fellow with the Independent Institute in Oakland, California. She is a Non-Resident Fellow with Defense Priorities and a Public Choice and Public Policy Fellow with the American Institute for Economic Research. She earned her PhD in Economics from George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia.

Hall's work includes topics surrounding militarism, security, and national defense. She has written extensively on issues related to foreign intervention and institutional change and military technologies. Her coauthored books include "Tyranny Comes Home: The Domestic Fate of U.S. Militarism" and "Manufacturing Militarism: U.S. Government Propaganda in the War on Terror," with Stanford University Press, "The Political Economy of Terrorism, Counterterrorism, and the War on Terror" with Cambridge University Press, and "How To Run Wars: A Confidential Playbook for the National Security Elite" with the Independent Institute.

About the podcast:

We all know we need to read more and there are literally millions of books on shelves with new ones printed every day. How do we sort through all the possibilities to find the book that is just right for us now?

Well, the McConnell Center is bringing authors and experts to inspire us to read impactful and entertaining books that might be on our shelves or in our e-readers, but which we haven't yet picked up.

We hope you learn a lot in the following podcast and we hope you might be inspired to pick up one or more of the books we are highlighting this year at the University of Louisville's McConnell Center.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center

Join the #McConnellCenter as we welcome Dr. Marc Landy for a Constitution Day discussion on Constitutionalism.

Marc Landy is the Edward and Louise Peterson Professor of American History and Government at Ashland University and a Professor of Political Science at Boston College. He is the co-author, with Sidney Milkis, of Presidential Greatness and the textbook American Government: Enduring Principles, Critical Choices. His other books include The Environmental Protection Agency from Nixon to Clinton and edited volumes on regulatory reform and public policy. His latest work, co-authored with Dennis Hale, is Keeping the Republic: A Defense of American Constitutionalism, published in 2024.

Stay Connected

• Visit us at McConnellcenter.org
• Subscribe to our newsletter
• Facebook: @mcconnellcenter
• Instagram: @ulmcenter
• Twitter: @ULmCenter

This podcast is a production of the McConnell Center