In personal news, as they say, I was recently named a Visiting Senior Fellow at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Policy, a think tank at Salve Regina University in Newport, Rhode Island where I will build an initiative focused on the preservation of American democracy.
Here’s how the Pell Center’s press release frames it: “International observers and democracy experts have warned that the United States is experiencing “democratic backsliding” as voting becomes more difficult, Congress seems ineffective, and gerrymandering alters the prospects for responsive politics across the United States. The “Big Lie” pushed by former President Donald Trump—that the 2020 election was stolen from him—and the January 6 insurrection inspired by those claims underscore the peril to American democracy.”
More details on what the project — an interdisciplinary research, writing and dissemination project — will do will be forthcoming.
For those who are curious: yes, l’ll remain based in Maine and continue to be State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and a contributing editor over at POLITICO magazine.
The Pell Center also produces the award-winning public television interview show, Story in the Public Square, where I was a guest this fall, talking about my most recent book, Union: The Struggle to Forge the Story of United States Nationhood.
COLIN WOODARD is a New York Times bestselling author and award-winning journalist. He is the author of six books that have been translated into a dozen foreign languages and inspired an NBC television drama. He is currently Director of Nationhood Lab at the Pell Center for International Relations and Public Affairs at Salve Regina University. As State and National Affairs Writer at the Portland Press Herald and Maine Sunday Telegram he won a 2012 George Polk Award and was a finalist for a Pulitzer Prize in 2016. He is a contributing editor at POLITICO and his work has appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Economist, Smithsonian and dozens of other major publications.