Seven faculty members from the College of Letters & Science will be featured in upcoming episodes of C-SPAN 2's Book TV.
Longtime host Peter Slen and a crew visited campus Oct. 26 to talk books, books and more books. Book TV was already in town for the Wisconsin Book Festival.
The faculty members featured will be:
- Menzie Chinn, professor of public affairs and economics, Lost Decades: The Making of America's Debt Crisis and the Long Recovery
- Donald Downs, professor, political science, law and journalism, Arms and the University: Military Presence and the Civic Education of Non-Military Students
- William P. Jones, professor, history, The March on Washington: Jobs, Freedom, and the Forgotten History of Civil Rights
- Alfred McCoy, professor, history, Torture and Impunity: The U.S. Doctrine of Coercive Interrogation
- Ryan Owens, professor, political science, The Solicitor General and the United States Supreme Court: Executive Branch Influence and Judicial Decisions
- Jennifer Ratner-Rosenhagen, associate professor, history, American Nietzsche: A History of an Icon and His Ideas
- Jessica Weeks, associate professor, political science, Dictators at War and Peace
Each weekend, Book TV features 48 hours of nonfiction books from 7 a.m. Saturday to 7 a.m. Monday. The Memorial Union's Hamel Family Browsing Library provided the backdrop for Monday's filming.
The show features authors in their own words — talking about their own works.
"Book TV is one of the only outlets for extended interviews with authors of scholarly books," Jones says. "It was a great opportunity to share my research with a broad audience of potential readers."
Jones spoke not only of Martin Luther King's moving "I Have a Dream" speech, but of many lesser-known speakers from that day when thousands gathered for the March on Washington. "That was phenomenal," Slen said when the interview ended. "We all learned something today."
Air dates haven't yet been confirmed, so stay tuned.
To see the full list of UW-Madison authors featured, read this story by University Communications.