Shannon O'Brien, Ph.D.
shannonbow@utexas.edu
Associate Professor of Instruction
University of Texas at Austin
Year of PhD: 2007
Phone: 3528707951
Address: 158 W 21st St Stop A1800
City: Austin, Texas - 78712-1704
Country: United States
I was born and raised in Louisville, Kentucky. I received my Ph.D. at the University of Florida. I have lived in Kentucky, South Carolina, Florida, Texas, and Budapest, Hungary. I'm an Associate Professor of Instruction in the Government Department at the University of Texas at Austin. I specialize in American Politics, especially the presidency and political history. I published Donald Trump and the Kayfabe Presidency in 2020. It looks at how Donald Trump uses unconventional wrestling tactics as his core communications tools. I published my book Why Presidential Speech Locations Matter: Analyzing Speechmaking from Truman to Obama in 2018 with Palgrave. It explores presidential speech location patterns and what we can learn about their preferences and choices. My new book, published in July 2024 is Eugenics in American Political Life: How the Politics of Superiority Still Shape Us Today. It looks at the origins of eugenics language, how it is still with us, and how modern politicians use these same ideas within their policies.
Research Interests
American Presidency And Executive Politics
Development
Urban Politics
Presidential Communication
Political History
Executive Politics
Countries of Interest
United States
My Research:
I study American politics, primarily from a historical perspective. Generally speaking, I'm very interested in how individuals affect institutional development. I'm fascinated with how executives can impact how a system interacts and works. My book (Donald Trump and the Kayfabe Presidency) looks at how Donald Trump uses wrestling rhetoric and language to push forward his agenda and narratives. In particular, how he has inculcated its rhetorical techiniques into personal style. In addition, I'm exploring how his style lends itself towards the idea of manufactured realities, or rather, how spaces can be created to encourage specific types of behaviors. My previous book looks at where presidents give speeches and what we can learn about administrations via locations. Locations matter and these choices tell us quite a bit about their priorities. My most recent book, Eugenics in American Political Life: How the Politics of Superiority Still Shape Us Today, looks at how eugenics developed in the United States and the United Kingdom. It explores how these ideas shaped American immigration policy. It discusses Mammy statues and how these ideas impact how we frame power in society. It also looks at how Donald Trump uses eugenic language in his speeches and policies.
co-authored with Natasha V. Christie. This work examines how Barack Obama’s speeches and remarks used various rhetorical techniques to strategically maneuver his rhetoric to address racial issues and represent African American concerns. The results of a content analysis of a selection of Obama’s speeches and remarks confirm that Obama and his speechwriters favored the use of statements of color-blind universalism. However, when making certain remarks regarding civil rights issues or perceived racial issues, the pattern shifted, presenting a rare glimpse of the unbalanced representation of African American concerns. These findings suggest that Barack Obama’s speeches and remarks performed double-consciousness; they used universal, balanced, and targeted universalism rhetorical techniques as a genuine, congruent political style for representing African American concerns as a “raced” politician
Constitutional Commentary 29:409, 410, co-authored with Bartholomew Sparrow
The book explores the development of the American eugenics movement and how it still plays a role in American life. Building on a brief overview of the concept of eugenics, Shannon Bow O’Brien charts the foundations of the ideas, significant influences, and influencers of the movement in the last 19th and early 20th centuries. She discusses how these ideals and social life shaped American culture and encouraged attitudes toward racial and ethnic biases, including immigration policies in that period. O’Brien examines how the founding of the United States of America was built on unwanted individuals from the United Kingdom; transported felons and indentured servants were many of the original colonists. As the population forged its new nation, many of these individuals were the focus of restrictive immigration policies that sought to amend the identity of the American citizen and sought to define acceptable roles for Black persons within American society. Faithful slave monuments provided physical models to help engrain these roles within American life. O’Brien traces the development of the Mammy statue movement and its intersectionality with the restrictive immigration laws. Finally, she turns to the rhetoric of Donald Trump and contextualizes his speech in the ideology of the superiority of White Nordic nativism within American life.
This book examines Donald Trump's longstanding connections to professional wrestling in relation to how he uses and exploits language, and the ways in which he has weaponized going public never before seen in previous administrations. Trump utilizes the language of wrestling to make rhetorical appeals and draws upon its theatrical tactics to redefine expectations of spaces to fundamentally change the nature of political expectations and expression. Wrestling is almost always about stories within a confined space, and Donald Trump inculcated many of its techniques to command an audience with rhetoric. The emotional performance supersedes truth or accuracy; factual exactness matters less than your presentation of the material. As Donald Trump blends performance and public service, social confusion over boundaries has occurred. Theatrical norms, when applied to daily life, generate vastly different reactions than within the artificial confines of an arena. It is not simply a muddling of public and private, but rather a jumbling of theatrical and generalized social standards. This book examines these aspects and explores how Donald Trump has also utilized well-established presidential tools in completely new ways in an attempt to build the strongest executive branch in American history.
The books looks at presidential speech locations and what they tell us about administrations. It looks at administrations through the lens of the Electoral College, Census, Media Markets, Vacations, and Foreign locations to show the impact of priorities and choices by administrations.
The chapter on Warren Harding in Hatred of America’s Presidents: Personal Attacks on the White House from Washington to Trump edited by Lori Cox Han
Extra Credit Substack: Short Article about presidential assassinations
Magazine article looking at how presidents use persuasion to get their point across. It argues excessive use of Twitter and other mediums dilutes the impact and power of their words.
September 17, 2024 August 22, 2024 August 14, 2024 July 18, 2024 July 12, 2024 June 3, 2024 February 26, 2024 January 15, 2024 January 9, 2024
Interview- aired July 7, 2024
live segment on July 20, 2024
Live Segment
BBC World News Evening Edition, August 12, 2022
Clip about search of Mar-a-Lago
September 11, 2021 (translated)
Appearance about Biden's cabinet nominations
Clip: on challenges of Biden presidency
Clip: Harris Makes History as First Black and Indian American Woman VP
Clip: Biden Projects Confidence as Lead Increases in Key States
Clip: Acquittal Not the End of Trump’s Battles With Democrats
Clip: Trump Courts Evangelicals to Secure Re-election
Clip: Ivanka Trump’s Growing Portfolio May Include the Environment
Clip: Fundraisers at Trump Properties Trigger Ethics Concerns
Clip: Texas No Longer a Sure Bet for Trump
Clip: Trump's Foreign Policy Process Stirs Controversy in Washington
Clip: Trump Seeks to Rally Supporters in Texas
Clip: A Celebration of Independence, in Trump Fashion
Clip: Mueller Makes First Public Comments on Russia Probe
recorded August 29, 2024 for August 30, 2024 airing recorded September 13, 2024 for September 16, 2024 airing
live radio segment
July 30- segment on American election
The History and Importance of Political Conventions
Radio Interview
Call in Public Radio program about the presidential transition
December 2020: “How Does a Contested Convention Work?”
Public Radio Show about Presidential Transitions
Donald Trump Relies on Eugenics Concepts, UT Prof Argues in New Book
August 16, 2024
About presidential running mates
Verdict for Donald Trump
Biden’s Headed to Austin, and Doggett Still Thinks He Should Drop Out
Interview
Interview
Biden Dropping Out
Foreign Policy
Presidential Election
Fact Check on the Presidential Records Act
(in Bengali)-translated from English “Reality Check: An America Led by Trump in Jail.”
Longshots in Politics
About Presidential Libraries
translated
Article I was quoted in
A newspaper article discussing Biden moving forward with America
Article about the Trump administration moving towards Biden's administration
December 9, 2021 (translated)
November 9, 2021 About Trump suing the National Archives
November 9, 2021 About the National Archives in general
November 6, 2021 (translated)
November 3, 2021 (translated)
November 3, 2021 (translated)
October 21, 2021 (translated)
September 15, 2021 California Governor Recall
Opinion Piece: Trump Portrays Both Confident Hero and Aggrieved Victim
What happens if President Donald Trump catches a coronavirus?
What Happens if President Donald Trump Catches Coronavirus?
As leaders spar over homelessness in Austin, California becomes a punching bag
Newspaper article about the presidential debate
Article about the Presidential Debates
Quote from an interview they conducted with me about the presidency
El Paso Times asked me about Beto O'Rourke's viability as a presidential hopeful
The Aims of a Presidential Assassin. August 14, 2024
All politicians change their minds-and have been flip-flopping on positions for hundreds of years.” August 26.
Trump’s Second Assassination Attempt is Shocking, but attempts on presidents’ lives are not rare in US history. September 17.
Biden isn’t the first to struggle to pop the presidential bubble that divides him from the public
From a pig as political candidate to a breakout speech for Obama- Democratic National Convention often leaves its mark on history
Manhattan grand jury votes to indict Donald Trump, showing he, like all other presidents, is not an imperial king
Mike Pence is jockeying against Donald Trump for the Republican presidential nomination- joining the ranks of just one vice president who, in 1800, also ran against a former boss
A Brief History of Colorful Presidential Relatives, from Alice Roosevelt to Hunter Biden
Remembering the veterans who marched on DC to demand bonuses during the Depression, only to be violently driving out by active-duty soldiers
Article written about search at Mar-a-Lago
Piece about search at Mar-a-Lago
Article about the Bonus Army in the Hoover Administration (and the controversy)
“Trump and Professional Wrestling with Shannon Bow O’Brien of the University of Texas at Austin,” Episode 559 http://www.resistancedashboard.com/node/818
Interview with Headline for Brazil
Media appearance discussion Biden's outreach towards American conservatives
April 14, 2021 I wrote an article discussing how Donald Trump did not give the bulk of his political speeches to the National Archives for inclusion in the Public Papers of the President.
October 22, 2021 Trump wants the National Archives to keep his papers away from investigators – post-Watergate laws and executive orders may not let him
Opinion Piece: What to Expect When You’re Electing
The University of Texas, College of Liberal Arts Magazine October 2020
The commentator saw my paper presentation at the Midwest Political Science convention in April 2019 and did a short radio segment about it.
Podcast about how I got into academia
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