Topics: Administrative, Speakers
September 11, 2017
Legendary activist, academic and author Angela Davis will speak about civil rights and social issues as part of Ball State University’s annual fall speakers series.
Davis, known internationally for her ongoing work to combat all forms of oppression in the U.S. and abroad, will discuss “Institutional Racism in the Penal & Criminal Justice System” at 7 p.m. Sept. 22 in Emens Auditorium. The presentation is free and open to the public. Davis will sign copies of her books afterward.
Davis is a Distinguished Professor Emerita in the departments of history of consciousness and feminist studies at University of California, Santa Cruz. She has written nine books, including “Angela Davis: An Autobiography,” “Women, Race, & Class” and “Are Prisons Obsolete?”
A prominent countercultural leader in the 1960s and ’70s, Davis has a longstanding commitment to prisoners' rights and was a founder of Critical Resistance, which seeks to eliminate prisons. She is also affiliated with Sisters Inside, an Australian-based group that champions women’s rights in the criminal justice system and works to get services for them. In 1994, she was named the University of California Presidential Chair in African American and Feminist Studies.
Davis’s visit to Ball State starts a two-day diversity symposium, which the public is invited to. Register for the event.
Campus and community sponsors for her visit include the African American studies minor and the Diversity Research Symposium, a collaboration of diversity offices at Ball State, Indiana State University and Indiana University Southeast.
Other presentations, which are free and open to the public, include:
Activist and author Julissa Arce, who will share her experiences about climbing the corporate ladder as both a Hispanic woman and undocumented American, which she’s written about in her memoir, “My (Underground) American Dream.” Her presentation, “The American DREAMer: From Undocumented to Wall Street and Immigration Advocacy,” is at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 2 in Pruis Hall.
Abby Smith Rumsey, a writer and historian whose inaugural Digital Scholarship Lecture, “How Digital Memory is Shaping Our Future,” will examine how new digital memory technologies are helping shape our identities, determining our perceptions of the past, and setting our expectations of the future. She will speak at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 4 in Pruis Hall and will sign copies of her book, “When We Are No More,” afterward.
Alex Sheen founded because I said I would, an international social movement and nonprofit that encourages bettering humanity by making and keeping promises. The organization has helped distribute more than 6.5 million promise cards across the globe; the cards remind people how important it is to keep their word. Sheen’s presentation, “The Life of a Promise,” is at 7:30 p.m. Oct. 30 in Pruis Hall.
Sponsors for Arce and Sheen’s presentations are Ball State’s Excellence in Leadership, Office of Institutional Diversity, Student Government Association, Office of Student Life and Division of Student Affairs. The new Digital Scholarship Lab and Friends of the A.M. Bracken Library are sponsoring Smith Rumsey’s lecture
By Gail Werner, Media Strategist