In Spring 2014, the internationally-renowned scholar, activist, and feminist, Angela Y. Davis, will be joining the Gender Studies department as a Regents’ Lecturer. Forty-five years ago, at the youthful age of 25, she taught her first UCLA class to an overflowing audience of 2,000 in Royce hall. Her lecture, for which she received a standing ovation, was on the concept of freedom in black literature. At the urging of Governor Ronald Reagan, the Board of Regents fired Professor Davis in 1969-70 for her radical politics; however, UCLA’s Chancellor Charles E. Young, its Academic Senate, and philosophy department recommended her reinstitution in the name of academic freedom. A judge later ruled her termination unconstitutional. Angela Y. Davis went on to dedicate her life to fighting for social justice and equal rights for all. She was one of the first public intellectuals to highlight the struggles of the incarcerated, especially violence against women prisoners, and to bring awareness to the fact that women of color are the fastest-growing population in prisons today. Having helped popularize the notion of a “prison industrial complex,” she now urges us to think seriously about a 21st century abolitionist movement that can move us toward the future possibility of a world without prisons. When Angela Davis left UCLA in 1970, Governor Reagan said she would never teach in the University of California system again. In 1994, she received the distinguished honor of an appointment to the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies, and today she is a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the History of Consciousness and Feminist Studies Departments at the University of California, Santa Cruz. In what constitutes a historic event, Professor Davis returns to UCLA to teach a Gender Studies graduate course, “Critical Theory and Feminist Dialogues.” On May 8th, she will deliver a Regents’ Lecture entitled “Feminism and Abolition: Extending the Dialogue” in Royce Hall, the place where it all began. The department of Gender Studies faculty, staff, and students are honored to welcome Angela Y. Davis back to UCLA. (Ticket information to follow.)
Posted on: Thu, 13 Mar 2014 02:59:10 +0000
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