A Handmaid’s Tale: A Conversation w/ Eileen Hunt Botting

Good Law | Bad Law

Aaron Freiwald, Managing Partner of Freiwald Law and host of the weekly podcast, Good Law | Bad Law, is joined by Political Science Professor, Dr. Eileen Hunt Botting, of the University of Notre Dame, to discuss this week’s Supreme Court confirmation proceedings of Judge Amy Coney Barrett, the impact that these hearings will have on our Court, our country, and our history, as well as what this moment in time will mean moving forward.

As yesterday marked the final day of Judge Barrett’s confirmation hearings, the country waits to see if Judge Barrett will assume Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg’s seat on the Court. Today’s conversation is paramount– Aaron and Eileen breakdown the fundamental problems at play in the refusal to halt Judiciary Committee proceedings until after the November election, detail Judge Barrett’s professional career and missteps in and since accepting the nomination, and debate whether or not our democratic foundation is in jeopardy. Professor Botting is one of more than 80 Notre Dame colleagues who penned a letter to Judge Barrett urging her to suspend her nomination for three critical reasons – 1. Voting for the next president is already underway, 2. It was RBG’s dying wish that her seat not be filled until after the election, and 3. The United States is in a crisis. Eileen and Aaron explore these reasons as they touch on the ideas of political polarization, the pandemic, political strategy and evasiveness, American exceptionalism, originalism, the Constitution as well as the broader ideas of dystopian literature, women’s rights, the writings of our Founding Fathers and Mothers, hope, equality and liberty, 18th century political thought and more.

A graduate of both Cambridge and Yale, Dr. Botting is a political theorist whose scholarly interests cover modern political thought, feminism, the family, rights, ethics of technology, philosophy and literature. Eileen’s research and teaching interests include Political Theory, Comparative Political Theory, History of Political Thought and consist of such subjects as Enlightenment, American, Feminist, Liberal, and International Political Thought. A published author, some of her books are: “Family Feuds: Wollstonecraft, Burke, and Rousseau on the Transformation of the Family (SUNY, 2006), “Wollstonecraft, Mill, and Women’s Human Rights” (Yale, 2016), and “Mary Shelley and the Rights of the Child: Political Philosophy in ‘Frankenstein’ (Penn Press, 2017,) plus several edited volumes and scholarly editions. Professor Botting has two new books forthcoming in 2020 and she has received grants and fellowships to support her writing. Her essays, political analyses, and opinion pieces have appeared in Aeon Magazine, The Washington Post, The New York Times, and The TLS.

Listen in now!

To learn more about Professor Botting, please visit her Notre Dame bio page here.

To read Professor Botting’s article, “Amy Coney Barrett’s Fall from Grace: A Rose Garden superspreader event puts in doubt the Supreme Court nominee’s commitment to the right to life,” please click here.

To read, “An Open Letter to Judge Amy Coney Barrett From Your Notre Dame Colleagues,” please click here.

Host: Aaron Freiwald

Guest: Eileen Hunt Botting

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