We are thrilled to bring our second summit, once again at Hendrix College in Conway, Arkansas. This time we are taking on the crisis of authoritarianism facing the United States by bringing together experts to talk about critical issues like Christian nationalism, immigration, the freedom of the press, and more. Tickets cost just $5

Allyson Shortle

Allyson Shortle is an Associate Professor and Director of Graduate Studies of Political Science at the University of Oklahoma, where she studies group identity in the context of American political behavior. She runs OU’s Community Engagement + Experiments Laboratory (CEEL), Oklahoma City’s Community Poll (Exit Poll), and OU’s Democracy Survey of OU freshmen. Dr. Shortle’s Cambridge University Press book, The Everyday Crusade: Christian Nationalism in American Politics (2022 – w. Eric L. McDaniel and Irfan Nooruddin), examines the relationship between American religious exceptionalism and prejudicial and antidemocratic attitudes.

Dr. Shortle has served as a Public Fellow with the Public Religion Research Institute (2023-2025) and the Alliance on Research for Regional Colleges (2023-2024). Her public research aims to increase civic engagement and improve local communities’ physical and mental health. Her research and political commentary have been featured across national and international news outlets such as The Conversation, The Hill, Newsweek, CNN, ABC Australia, and France 24.

Holly Berkley Fletcher

Holly Berkley Fletcher is a Ph.D. historian, author, essayist, and former intelligence analyst. Her second book, The Missionary Kids: Unmasking the Myths of White Evangelicalism, due out in August 2025 from Broadleaf Books, examines the place of missions in white evangelical identity through the eyes of missionaries' children, of which she is one. Her first book, Gender and the American Temperance Movement of the Nineteenth Century, was published in 2007 by Routledge. She spent 19 years working as an Africa analyst at the Central Intelligence Agency and also publishes on related topics. She writes on Substack at A Zebra Without Stripes.

James Ross

James Ross has a Ph.D. from Auburn University and is a specialist in the interaction of race, class, and religion in 20th century United States history. He also spends much of his time investigating Arkansas history. He is a former high school teacher and serves as assistant coordinator of the secondary social studies education program.

As part of his work with social studies teachers, both pre-professional and professional, he has served as lead historian for the Teaching American History grant project in conjunction with the Little Rock School District.

His current research is on Christian nationalism and the early religious right.

Matthew Moore

Matthew Moore is a reporter and senior producer for Ozarks at Large, a daily newsmagazine on KUAF Public Radio. He also serves as an adjunct instructor of radio reporting at the University of Arkansas. His work ranges from investigative coverage of state government to feature reporting on local communities, with a commitment to telling nuanced stories across a wide spectrum of topics.

Rich Shumate

Dr. Rich Shumate is an assistant professor of journalism in the School of Mass Communication at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock. His academic research focuses on audience responses to political coverage in the news media, specifically perceptions of news media bias among partisans.

He is also a public affairs columnist for the Arkansas Advocate.

He is the author of Barry Goldwater, Distrust in Media, and Conservative Identity: The Perception of Liberal Bias in the News (Lexington Books, 2021), which examines why U.S. conservatives developed

the perception that the news media have a liberal bias during the early 1960s.

Prior to shifting into academia, Shumate worked for more than 25 years as a journalist, with experience on newspapers and magazines in Georgia, North Carolina, and Wyoming. He also spent 10 years at CNN’s world headquarters in Atlanta, working as a senior writer for CNN.com and as an editor on the network’s domestic newsgathering desk.

Jessica Pishko

Jessica Pishko is an independent journalist and lawyer who has been writing about the criminal legal system for a decade with a focus on the political power of law enforcement officials. Since 2018, she has been focused on American sheriffs and their role—past and present—in perpetuating mass incarceration and white supremacy as well as how sheriffs present a growing threat to democracy in the United States.

Previously, Pishko was a fellow at the Rule of Law Collaborative at the University of South Carolina, researching sheriff accountability. She has received grants from the Pulitzer Center for Crisis Reporting and Type Investigations. Her work has appeared in the New York Times op-ed section, Politico, Slate, the Atlantic, and the Appeal. She is writing a book for Dutton on the history and growing political power of sheriffs entitled "The Highest Law in the Land," and was a 2022 New America Fellow.

A longtime Texas resident, she currently lives with her family in North Carolina.

Ian Carillo

Ian Carrillo is an assistant professor of sociology at the University of Oklahoma. His research focuses on racial, class, and environmental inequalities, with a focus on Latin America and the US. He received his PhD at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. His book The Business of Racism: Revaluation and Reaction in Brazil's Racial Capitalism (Duke University Press) will come out in Spring 2026.

Andy Craig

Andy Craig is a fellow at the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University. His work is focused on election law and electoral reform, along with the political philosophy of liberalism, pluralism, and democracy. Craig’s analysis and recommendations have been cited by members of both parties in Congress and were incorporated in the Electoral Count Reform Act of 2022. His work has appeared in outlets including the Washington Post, Fox News, MSNBC, The Nation, and Politico. He is a regular columnist for The UnPopulist and has testified on election law to state legislative committees around the country, in addition to communications and strategic consulting for campaigns ranging from presidential candidates to local races.  

Kevin Elliott

Kevin J. Elliott is a political scientist and Lecturer in Ethics, Politics, & Economics at Yale University. His main research interests are in political theory, particularly democratic theory, and focus on the ethics of democratic citizenship, political epistemology, and the normative justification and design of political institutions. Much of his research investigates questions at the intersection of normative and empirical inquiry, and so draws from both.

He is author of Democracy for Busy People (University of Chicago Press). His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, The Journal of Politics, Perspectives on Politics, Political Theory, Critical Review, Contemporary Political Theory, CRISPP (Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy) and Res Publica. He received his PhD from Columbia University in 2015, a Master’s in Political Theory from the London School of Economics, and his BA from UCLA (Summa Cum Laude; Dept & Collegiate Honors). His research has been supported by the U. S. Department of Education, Princeton University’s University Center for Human Values (UCHV), Columbia’s Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy (ISERP), and the Institute for Humane Studies.

Michael Li

Michael Li is senior counsel in the Brennan Center’s Democracy Program, where his work focuses on redistricting, voting rights, and elections. Prior to joining the Brennan Center, Li practiced law at Baker Botts L.L.P. in Dallas for 10 years. 
In addition to his election law work, Li previously served as executive director of Be One Texas, a donor alliance that oversaw strategic and targeted investments in nonprofit organizations working to increase voter participation and engagement in historically disadvantaged Black and Latino communities in Texas.
Li was the author of a widely cited blog on redistricting and election law issues that the New York Times called “indispensable.” He is a regular writer and commentator on election law issues, appearing on PBS Newshour, MSNBC, and NPR, and in print in the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, USA Today, Roll Call, Vox, National Journal, Texas Tribune, Dallas Morning News, and San Antonio Express-News, among others.

Li received an undergraduate degree in history from the University of Texas at Austin and his law degree with honors from Tulane Law School.

Austin Gelder

Austin Gelder is the editor of The Arkansas Times. There, she primarily covers government, politics, and education.

Austin has over two decades of experience in journalism and editorial work, including at the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette and Heifer International’s World Ark magazine.