CONWAY, Ark. (September 17, 2012) - Slate columnist Sasha Issenberg will appear on the Hendrix College campus on Monday, Oct. 8, at 4:10 pm to discuss his new book The Victory Lab.
The talk, sponsored by the College's Project Pericles program, will take place in the Murphy House Seminar Room. For more information, contact Dr. Jay Barth at barth@hendrix.edu or 501-450-1319.
Issenberg covered the 2008 election as a national political reporter in the Washington bureau of The Boston Globe, and his work has also appeared in The New York Times Magazine, and The Washington Monthly.
His book The Victory Lab presents the untold story of the analytical revolution upending the way political campaigns are run in the 21st century. The Victory Lab follows the maverick operatives and academics now calling the shots in some of the most cutting-edge war rooms, in the process transforming the highest-stakes industry in the country. Armed with research from behavioral psychology, data-mining, and randomized experiments that treat voters as unwitting guinea pigs, the smartest campaigns now believe they know who you will vote for even before you do. Issenberg uncovers the secret history of modern American politics, pulling back the curtain on these revolutionary tactics and strategies, which helped to decide the 2004 and 2008 races and have become essential to the campaigns of Barack Obama and Mitt Romney.
Dr. Jay Barth, the director of civic engagement projects at Hendrix, says, "As we move towards election day, it is crucial that we all understand the growing sophistication of campaigns in targeting voters. Some will find Issenberg's analysis fascinating and others will find it disturbing. But, everyone will recognize its importance."
Founded in 1876, Hendrix College is a national leader in engaged liberal arts and sciences education. For the fifth consecutive year, Hendrix was named one of the country's "Up and Coming" liberal arts colleges by U.S. News and World Report. Hendrix is featured in the 2012 edition of the Princeton Review as one of the country's best 377 colleges, the latest edition of Colleges That Change Lives: 40 Schools That Will Change the Way You Feel about Colleges, Forbes magazine's annual list of America's Top 650 Colleges, and the 2013 edition of the Fiske Guide to Colleges. Hendrix has been affiliated with the United Methodist Church since 1884. For more information, visit www.hendrix.edu.