Education & Professional History
Indiana University, BA, MA, PhD
At Carleton since 1988.
Highlights & Recent Activity
- Directed the film Actual World, Possible Future, which was named the 2020 Bronze Medal Award Winner by the National Telly Awards in the Social Responsibility Category—which included over 1,2000 entrants from all 50 US states and five continents.
- Co-Authored the book, Truth in Advertising? Lies in Political Advertising and How They Affect the Electorate with Daniel Stevens, which was named the winner of the Richard E. Neustadt Book Prize 2019, Best Book in American Politics.
- Feature in the Carleton College Voice on the award-winning book that examines how campaign advertising affects civil discourse.
- The Quest for the Perfect Timpani — Along with Rebecca Kite, Allen worked to design, patent and manufacture a GP Percussion timpani, curated by the International Percussive Arts Society Museum: Rhythm! Discovery Center, Indianapolis, IN.
Current Courses
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Fall 2022
POSC 100:
Political Culture and Political Communication
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POSC 215:
Comparative Political Communication: News Coverage of Elections
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
POSC 232:
Political Science Lab Focus Group Analysis
-
Winter 2023
POSC 300:
Political Research Experience
-
POSC 335:
Navigating Environmental Complexity—Challenges to Democratic Governance and Political Communication
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Spring 2023
POSC 214:
Visual Representations of Political Thought and Action
-
POSC 300:
Political Research Experience
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Fall 2023
POSC 211:
Media, Politics & Difference
Barbara Allen is a political scientist and filmmaker. Her research in political communication includes analyzing election news coverage and political advertising, subjects on which she has published many articles and an award-winning book, Truth in Advertising? Lies in Political Advertising and How They Affect the Electorate, co-authored with Daniel Stevens. With Stevens and dozens of Carleton students she has been analyzing local and national news coverage of US Elections since Election 2000. The Carleton Election Study has been the basis of student research presentations at such professional conferences as the Midwest Political Science Association Annual Meeting and a subject of numerous senior thesis projects.
Professor Allen also writes in the field of political theory, publishing many journal articles and books on the democratic theory of Alexis de Tocqueville and the political thought of Martin Luther King, Jr. She teaches courses on Tocqueville and King as well as on many other thinkers and activists working for social justice in late-twentieth century and current US politics.
Professor Allen earned her Ph.D. from Indiana University working with NOBEL Laureate Elinor Ostrom and political theorist Vincent Ostrom. She is a Senior Research Fellow of the Ostrom Workshop in Political Theory and Policy Analysis where she has co-authored and edited books with Vincent Ostrom including the two-volume work, The Quest to Understand Human Affairs: Vol 1, Natural Resources Policy and Essays on Community and Collective Choice and Vol 2, Essays on Collective, Constitutional, and Epistemic Choice. This research is also the subject of her courses on Institutional Analysis and Development and Social Ecological Systems, which she teaches in the Environmental Studies, Public Policy, and Political Science programs.
Professor Allen teaches in Cinema and Media Studies as well as in Political Science, using tools from both fields to think about and analyze many important puzzles that face human communities. Her work as a director of nonfiction films examines urgent political, economic, and social issues. Signing On: Stories of Deaf Breast Cancer Survivors, Their Families and the Deaf Community won the Twin Cities Film Fest Audience Award in 2011, screened in Berlin at Gebärdensprachfilmwoche 2013, and aired on PBS Television. Signing On uncovered the disparities in healthcare access for Deaf people and troubling facts about US health literacy in general and for all non-majority language communities.
In 2019, Allen premiered Actual World Possible Future: The Lives and Work of Elinor and Vincent Ostrom. The film documents Noble Laureate (Economics) Lin Ostrom’s research showing how ordinary people can tackle global challenges like climate change. A TV version of Actual World Possible Future was broadcast by Indiana Public Television, winning a bronze medal in the 2020 Telly Awards, Social Responsibility Division.
Professor Allen’s filmmaking also reflects her interest in design, particularly mechanical design. With timpanist and marimba soloist Rebecca Kite, she also holds four US and international patents for design of timpani.
Current Courses
-
Fall 2022
POSC 100:
Political Culture and Political Communication
-
POSC 215:
Comparative Political Communication: News Coverage of Elections
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
POSC 232:
Political Science Lab Focus Group Analysis
-
Winter 2023
POSC 300:
Political Research Experience
-
POSC 335:
Navigating Environmental Complexity—Challenges to Democratic Governance and Political Communication
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Spring 2023
POSC 214:
Visual Representations of Political Thought and Action
-
POSC 300:
Political Research Experience
-
POSC 400:
Integrative Exercise
-
Fall 2023
POSC 211:
Media, Politics & Difference