Please join us on Tuesday, October 29, at 7 pm ET for Part 2 of First Ladies on the Campaign Trail--The Republican Women. Paulette Brinka and Tammy Vigil will present the program moderated by Valerie Palmer-Mehta.
Contemporary wives of GOP presidents have delivered impactful and important addresses at the Republican National Convention. Such speeches by Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, and Melania Trump helped shape these women’s public personas and legacies and, in some cases, altered perceptions of their husbands. Wives were also busy on the campaign trail and each approached it her way. Find out how Betty Ford, Nancy Reagan, Barbara Bush, Laura Bush, and Melania Trump approached the campaign trail.
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Paulette Brinka is an inaugural lifetime FLARE member. She often calls First Ladies Studies her guilty pleasure, a topic she finds endlessly compelling. An associate adjunct professor at Suffolk County Community College in the field of Communication, she has also worked in broadcasting and local government. She studied at both Boston University and Hofstra University, loves to write, and loves to travel. She lives on Long Island, outside of New York City, and has two children, a son and a daughter, both of whom she is immensely proud.
Valerie Palmer-Mehta is a Professor of Communication at Oakland University. Her research examines women's political rhetoric, exploring diverse figures such as pro-democracy dissident Aung San Suu Kyi (pronounced CHEE) of Burma, second-wave U.S. feminist Andrea Dworkin, and Arkansas Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders. She also has published research on the role and influence of First Ladies Sarah Polk and Edith Wilson. Her work has appeared in journals such as Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, International Journal of Communication, and Communication, Culture & Critique as well as edited collections such as Southern First Ladies: Culture and Place in White House History and A Companion to First Ladies (both edited by the esteemed founding member of FLARE, Katherine Sibley).
Tammy R. Vigil is an Associate Professor of Communication at Boston University where she researches US presidential campaigns, presidential spouses, and public address. Dr. Vigil’s books include Moms in Chief: The Rhetoric of Republican Motherhood and the Spouses of Presidential Nominees, 1992-2016; Melania & Michelle: First Ladies in a New Era; Connecting with Constituents: Identification Building and Blocking in Contemporary National Convention Addresses; and the forthcoming US Political Ritual and the Covid Pandemic: The 2020 Democratic and Republican Conventions. She has served as an expert source for stories in several news outlets including the Associate Press, Guardian, Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, CNN, CNBC, and NPR and was formerly the senior associate dean of the College of Communication at Boston University.