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About Susan Liebell

Susan Liebell is a political theorist working at the intersection of public law. Currently, she is researching and publishing on originalism, Stand Your Ground, and the Second Amendment. Recently, her work has appeared in the Monkey Cage, The Journal of Politics, and Polity. Her teaching during COVID was featured in the Washington Post. She provides political commentary for PHL 17's In Focus.

Susan Liebell is Dirk Warren '50 Professor of Political Science at Saint Joseph’s University in Philadelphia.

Susan's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Susan:

Political Science May 22, 2023

Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood

White Women, Class, and Segregation

Rebecca Brückmann

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Massive Resistance and Southern Womanhood: White Women, Class, and Segregation (U Georgia Press, 2021) offers a comparative sociocultural and spatial history of white supremacist women involved in massive resistance. The …
Political Science May 15, 2023

The Age of Discontent

Populism, Extremism, and Conspiracy Theories in Contemporary Democracies

Matthew Rhodes-Purdy, Rachel Navarre, and Stephen Utych

Hosted by Susan Liebell
How do we explain the rise of populism, extremism, and conspiracy theory in the Americas and Europe? Why do members of a society come to feel this strong sense of …
Political Science May 1, 2023

Deploying Feminism

The Role of Gender in NATO Military Operations

Stéfanie von Hlatky

Hosted by Susan Liebell
In 1995, the Fourth World Conference on Women in Beijing launched the Women, Peace, and Security (WPS) agenda. Successive UN Security Council resolutions highlighted the need to include more women …
Political Science April 24, 2023

Three Generations, No Imbeciles

Eugenics, the Supreme Court, and Buck v. Bell

Paul A. Lombardo

Hosted by Susan Liebell
“Three generations of imbeciles are enough” were the infamous words U.S. Supreme Court Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes Jr. wrote in 1927. In Buck v. Bell, an almost unanimous Court upheld …
Postscript April 12, 2023

Abortion and the Law

Can One Judge Overturn the FDA…Using a 19th-Century Statute?

Renée Ann Cramer, Rebecca Kreitzer, Joshua C. Wilson, and Mary Ziegler

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Today’s Postscript focuses on abortion politics in the United States, with particular attention to the April 7, 2023 federal court decisions in Texas and Washington controlling access to mifepristone and …
Political Science April 3, 2023

The Nature of Slavery

Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World

Katherine Johnston

Hosted by Susan Liebell
The Nature of Slavery: Environment and Plantation Labor in the Anglo-Atlantic World (Oxford UP, 2022) interrogates how people with an interest in African slavery manufactured and publicly disseminated a baseless …
Political Science March 13, 2023

The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe

Nicholas Carnes and Lilly J. Goren

Hosted by Susan Liebell
In The Politics of the Marvel Cinematic Universe (UP of Kansas, 2022), Drs. Nicholas Carnes and Lilly J. Goren ask what lessons does Marvel – a “hulking, hegemonic media franchise” …
Political Science August 29, 2022

Public Faces, Secret Lives

A Queer History of the Women's Suffrage Movement

Wendy L. Rouse

Hosted by Susan Liebell
When the 100th anniversary of the 19th amendment was commemorated in 2020, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony were often the focus of museum exhibits, teach-outs, and scholarly works …
Postscript August 22, 2022

Postscript

How the Supreme Court Overturned a Century-Old Gun Law…and Changed American Jurisprudence

Joseph Blocher and Andrew Willinger

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Today’s Postscript (a special series that allows scholars to comment on pressing contemporary issues) focuses on the US Supreme Court and the Second Amendment. It is hard to exaggerate the …
Political Science August 15, 2022

Hijacking the Agenda

Economic Power and Political Influence

Christopher Witko, Jana Morgan, Nathan J. Kelly, and Peter K. Enns

Hosted by Susan Liebell
How do competing interests shape public policy? Why are the economic interests and priorities of lower-, working-, and middle-class Americans often neglected while the interests and priorities of wealthier Americans …
Postscript May 13, 2022

Postscript

Post-Roe Politics

Lilly J. Goren, Rebecca Kreitzer, Andrew R. Lewis, Candis Watts Smith, and Joshua C. Wilson

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Today’s Postscript uniquely engages abortion politics by addressing structural political issues (voter suppression, gerrymandering, dilutions of minority voting, obstacles to women registering their positions politically), inconsistencies in Justice Samuel Alito’s …
Political Science May 2, 2022

Nowhere to Run

Race, Gender, and Immigration in American Elections

Christian Dyogi Phillips

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Why has the underrepresentation of women and racial minorities in elected office proved so persistent in American politics? In Nowhere to Run: Race, Gender, and Immigration in American Elections (Oxford UP …
Political Science April 25, 2022

Policing China

Street-Level Cops in the Shadow of Protest

Suzanne E. Scoggins

Hosted by Susan Liebell
China has the reputation for being a strong security state. After the pro-democracy Tiananmen protests, the Chinese government moved to increase stability maintenance – and that approach is reflected in …
Political Science March 30, 2022

Smashing Statues

The Rise and Fall of America's Public Monuments

Erin L. Thompson

Hosted by Susan Liebell
In the United States, the national debate over public monuments often frames the removal of statutes as a revision of history. But Dr. Thompson suggests that we need to interrogate …
Political Science March 7, 2022

How to Prevent Coups D'État

Counterbalancing and Regime Survival

Erica de De Bruin

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Today I talked to Erica De Bruin about her book How to Prevent Coups d’état: Counterbalancing and Regime Survival (Cornell University Press, 2020). Rulers structure institutions so as to protect their survival …
Political Science February 21, 2022

Writing the New World

The Politics of Natural History in the Early Spanish Empire

Mauro José Caraccioli

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Is natural history a genre of political thought? What do we miss about the substance of political ideas when we ignore the study of nature? Writing the New World: The …
Political Science February 15, 2022

The Sound of Exclusion

NPR and the Latinx Public

Christopher Chávez

Hosted by Susan Liebell
How is power enacted in everyday broadcast practices? National Public Radio has a “rhetoric of impartiality” but this obscures the ideological work done by the network.” In The Sound of …
Political Science January 31, 2022

Race, Gender, and Political Representation

Toward a More Intersectional Approach

Beth Reingold, Kerry L. Haynie, and Kirsten Widner

Hosted by Susan Liebell
How do gender and race interact to affect the election, behavior, and impact of all individuals – raced women and gendered minorities alike? According to our authors, “what we know …
Political Science December 20, 2021

Beyond Slavery's Shadow

Free People of Color in the South

Warren E. Milteer, Jr.

Hosted by Susan Liebell
We often focus on enslaved people of color but Dr. Warren E. Milteer Jr.’s Beyond Slavery's Shadow: Free People of Color in the South (UNC Press, 2021) directs our attention …
Postscript December 17, 2021

Postscript

Abortion Extremism and Criminalization: Whatever Happened to Exceptions for Rape and Incest?

Michele Goodwin and Mary Ziegler

Hosted by Susan Liebell
This Postscript engages two of the country’s most celebrated legal scholars to discuss the criminalization of abortion and miscarriage, the elimination of exceptions for rape and incest, the political and …
Political Science December 13, 2021

American by Birth

Wong Kim Ark and the Battle for Citizenship

Carol Nackenoff and Julie Novkov

Hosted by Susan Liebell
All nations make rules -- through their constitutions, legislatures, bureaucratic practices – about who counts as a citizen. American by Birth examines the role of the Supreme Court – particularly …
Postscript December 10, 2021

Postscript

SB-8, Dobbs, and the Politics of Abortion

Rebecca Kreitzer, Andrew R. Lewis, and Joshua C. Wilson

Hosted by Susan Liebell
In this Postscript, Susan Liebell and Lilly Goren review this morning’s U.S. Supreme Court decision in Texas SB-8, the oral arguments in last week’s Mississippi abortion case, and the wider …
Political Science December 6, 2021

Figures of the Future

Latino Civil Rights and the Politics of Demographic Change

Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz

Hosted by Susan Liebell
Figures of the Future: Latino Civil Rights and the Politics of Demographic Change (Princeton UP, 2021) examines the “contemporary population politics of national Latino civil rights advocacy.” The book challenges …
Postscript November 22, 2021

Postscript

The Supreme Court, Concealed Carry, and How Your Laws Might Change

Joseph Blocher, Jacob B. Charles, and Eric Ruben

Hosted by Susan Liebell
An earlier Postscript explained what was at stake for concealed carry laws in a case before the U.S. Supreme Court – and guessed at what the oral arguments might reveal …