By Jennifer Hanley
Activist Angela Davis to speak, teach at U of L
Activist, author, and University of California-Santa Cruz professor Angela Davis will give several public lectures and teach a class during the fall semester as a scholar in residence at the University of Louisville.
Professor Davis is team teaching a women’s studies course this fall named “Women, Race and Class”. Her stay in Louisville is part of six-year initiative called the Liberal Studies Project. The C.E. and S. Foundation gave six million dollars to U of L’s liberal studies department to allow all departments in the College of Arts and Sciences to invite a famous scholar in that department’s field to team teach an interdisciplinary class and give a liberal studies seminar. The program, headed by John Hale, is in its fourth year. In addition to Professor Davis, there are three other scholars in residence for that fall semester. Dr. Michael Crowe is a guest of the mathematics department and is teaching a course called “Revolutions in Science.” Professor Richard Stren is a guest of the political science department and is teaching a course called “Globalization and Urban Politics in the North and South.”
In addition to the class, Davis will give free public talks. Her first is September 19th in the Speed Art Museum at 5:30 p.m., “Women and Jazz.” While the even is free, tickets are required for admission. Leading off the women’s studies fall lecture series, Professor Davis will speak September 25th on “Blues Legacies and Black Feminism: Gertrude ‘Ma’ Rainey, Bessie Smith and Billie Holliday,” which is the title of her 1998 book. The talk will begin at 3:30 p.m. in Room 100 of the Bingham Humanities Building.
Two sessions of Professor Davis’ class “Women, Race and Class” will be open to the public: October 8th, “Circuits of Violence: From State Violence to Domestic Violence,” and November 19th, “Punishment, Politics and the Economy.” Both sessions will begin at 2:30 p.m. in the Ekstrom Library Auditorium.
Professor Davis completed her bachelor’s degree at Brandeis University after attending the Frankfurt School and the University of Paris. Davis completed her Master’s degree in 1968 at University of California San Diego. She lost assistant professor position at the University of California at Los Angeles after a year because of her involvement with the Black Panther Party and the Communist Party. In 1970, Davis became the third woman in history to appear on the FBI’s Most wanted list in for conspiracy to free George Jackson in a shootout that left three people and a judge dead. She was tried and acquitted of all charges, which included kidnapping and murder.
Davis’ other books include “Women, Race and Class,” “The Prison Industrial Complex,” “If They Come in the Morning: Voices of Resistance” and “Angela Davis: An Autobiography.”
For more information on the Liberal Studies Project, contact Janna Tajibaeva at (502) 852-2247. For ticket information, contact the Speed Art Museum at (502) 634-2700.
