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StocktonAfterClass — Science
StocktonAfterClass

Ron Stockton was a professor of political science at the University of Michigan-Dearborn for 48 years. His specialty was non-western politics and political change. He taught classes on the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, Religion and Politics, the Politics of Revolution, Non-Western politics, and American politics. He also taught in the Honors Program, focusing upon foundational readings from the 18th and 19th centuries. He has an interest in religion and politics and in the role of religio-ethnic groups in the political system. The listener can anticipate talks on Arab-Americans, Jews, African-Americans, the Scots-Irish, and Evangelicals. He has lectured and written on American politics, public opinion, and voting behavior and on the role of religious organizations and ideologies in the political system. There will be occasional discussions of books and films that address serious issues. And he has lectured and published and even taught a class on gravestones, especially those of different ethnic and religious groups such as Muslims, African-Americans, Jews, and Native Americans. The goal of the podcast series is to provide analysis and commentary by a political scientist to explain and make accessible political, historical, and cultural developments in the United States and around the world, and to give the listener analytical tools to understand those developments. It is also to entertain the listener.

Copyright: © 2021 StocktonAfterClass

Latest Episodes:

Obama's Presidential Memoir: A Promised Land Mar 11, 2021

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This is my summary of Barack Obama's presidential memoir. It is a stunningly elegant book, intimate, informative, insightful, candid. Obama's style is as a story teller, someone sitting in the living room discussing with you what really happened. It reminds me of Jimmy Carter's family story, An Hour Before Daylight. Anyone taking a drive across country would be happy if they took that with them. This is probably true of the Obama memoir as well.
Not only do I discuss the memoir, and the points that I think are more important, but I also read some passages that I think are particularly revealing.
I give special attention to the issue of race and the racist lies about Obama, dealing with a Republican party that believes negotiations will cost them votes in the next election, heroism in politics, dealing with Israel, Middle East issues, how to govern.
If you don't want to listen to a 70 minute podcast, you can read the 700 page book. Or go on to the next Reacher novel.
ps. I have a second possible Obama podcast. That would be my reflections on the Wednesday after he won in 2008. It's a bit more personal than analytical but it combines the two approaches. Let's see if Obama 1.0 is a hit before we decide on Obama 2.0.

Grandfather Stories (that I told my grandchildren) Mar 08, 2021

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I decided early on that a grandfather should be a story teller. I would entertain the four grandkids by telling stories. Sometimes these were real stories, and sometimes they were made up. I would say, "Do you want a real story or a made up one?" My grandson would often ask for a real story, but the other kids were more flexible.
These are three stories that I told my grandkids. Children love to hear stories over and over, so these were not one-off stories.
You may not like these stories, which would be fine.
Or you may enjoy them. They are only 20 minutes.
My grandkids did.
(Music by the awesome Kevin Dewey).

Religion and Politics 1. Feuerbach and How we Think About God Mar 07, 2021

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When I would start my class on Religion and Politics, my first lecture would always be on Feuerbach. He would give students a new way to think. We could focus on the God Idea- which we humans generate. This had nothing to do with God but rather with human thinking. We could analyze "outside of the circle" of believers as I would call it.
This is a bit of an intellectual discussion, but I have tried to make it accessible.
If you think this might upset you, then skip it. If you want your thinking challenged, then Carry On (as the British would say).
The students liked it.
Happy studenting.

Vernon Jordan: A Civil Rights Giant, and Power Broker Mar 04, 2021

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Vernon Jordan died on March 2, 2021. He was one of the last of the Civil Rights generation, those giants who were contemporaries of Martin Luther King. (Jesse Jackson is the last of that generation, unless I have forgotten someone).
Jordan was at the center of DC politics, and of advancing Black rights.
As a close friend of Bill Clinton, he got questioned in the Monica scandal. His answers show the substance of the man.
I met him once, when he was doing a book tour. I was able to ask him a question, and got an answer that I really liked.
This is my appreciation of his life.

Israeli-Palestinian Conflict 5. Ariel Sharon. Hero or Murderer or Security Threat? Mar 02, 2021

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To his fans, who were many, Ariel Sharon was a hero, a defender of his people. His exploits during the 1973 war were legendary. But not everyone agreed. To the Lebanese he was the Butcher of Beirut. Former Prime Minister Menachem Begin, under whom Sharon served, saw him as a security threat, an insubordinate general who escalated the Lebanese War into a major crisis. Begin said that he expected to wake up some morning to look out the window and see his office surrounded by tanks. And Sharon's insistence on capturing as much of the West Bank as possible set up a future crisis whose outcome we cannot yet tell.
This is the story of Sharon's life and career, the good, the bad, and the ugly.

Nelson Mandela: The Greatest Black Man of the 20th Century Feb 24, 2021

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This describes the two times Jane and I crossed paths with Nelson Mandela. Once was in Cape Town, once in Detroit.
How amazing to come so close to greatness.

Israeli Palestinian Conflict 14. Christian Zionism: Prophecy, politics, public opinion, Israel Feb 21, 2021

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Christian Zionism is the belief that the Bible predicted the creation of a Jewish state in 1948 and that Christians are obligated to support that state. This belief grew out of the Protestant Reformation in the 1600s. By the late 1800s it was very strong in America. What is interesting is that the Protestant idea of "restoring" the Jews to Jerusalem predates the emergence of Jewish political Zionism in 1896 when Herzl wrote his famous essay. This podcast, which was et up as a classroom lecture, discusses the Biblical texts that provide a foundation for the belief. It discusses how traditional Catholic teachings (unfriendly to Jews) were transformed by the emergence of Protestantism and a new "philo-Semitic" way of reading the Bible.
There is a discussion of the concept of the millennium (a thousand years of justice), of pre-millennial and post-millennial views, of the idea of an Anti-Christ, of the concept of "signs," and of the passage in the gospels known as the Eschatological Discourse.
There is also a discussion of public opinion patterns and why public opinion does not shape policy but allows it to emerge without resistance.
For those interested, my article on this topic is available in Deep Blue. It's title is "Christian Zionism: Prophecy and Public Opinion."

Deep Blue: How to find my publications for free Feb 21, 2021

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Deep Blue is the University of Michigan virtual archive on the internet. You can find my publications there -- articles, talks, essays, book chapters. They can be downloaded for free. When I mention one of my articles or talks during a podcast, you can follow up if you wish.
Update (June 1, 2021)
1. Google "University of Michigan Deep Blue"
2. Once in, click on Deep Blue Repositories.
3. Then enter my name Stockton, Ronald. Stockton alone will not work.
If perchance, you get a doctor, try again with Stockton, Ronald R.
4. Note: Deep Blue alone is a chess game. If you get that, try again with University of Michigan included.
It's easy.

Rules of Good Studenting Feb 17, 2021

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This is a short discussion of only about 15 minutes.
These are not rules in the traditional sense of rules and you do not have to be a student in the traditional sense of being enrolled in a class. These "rules" are more guidelines for how to listen in a way that will maximize your ability to engage with difficult topics on which you might have pre-existing perspectives.
My classroom students really liked these rules.
Note: While I originally wrote these rules for the benefit of my students, I also wrote them to reflect my own experience and my own efforts to get beyond my assumptions about something difficult to understand.

Israel Palestine 4. Arab Revolt of 1936, Part B Feb 17, 2021

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This is the second half of the talk on the Arab Revolt of 1936-1939. The focus is on how all parties to this conflict -- British, Jewish, Palestinian -- were transformed in fundamental ways, and how the consequences of the uprising set the stage for future developments.

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