Beverly Guy-Sheftall—a scholar of black feminism, author, and founding director of the Women’s Research and Resource Center at Spelman College in Atlanta—will discuss “Lessons from Charlottesville: Intersectionality 101” as part of the Power of Diversity lecture series at Case Western Reserve University.
Free and open to the public, Sheftall’s lecture will be held Monday, Oct. 9, at 4:30 p.m., in Tinkham Veale University Center, Ballroom C (11038 Bellflower Road) on the Case Western Reserve campus in Cleveland.
Sheftall, the Anna Julia Cooper Professor of Women’s Studies at Spelman College, previously taught graduate courses as a visiting professor at Emory University’s Institute for Women’s Studies.
A pioneer of black feminism in the 1960s, Sheftall took the helm of black feminist studies, raging against sentiments that positioned black feminism as obsolete once black women gained access to the labor force. She has continued to work tirelessly to institute black feminist studies as a legitimate discipline.
Sheftall has published several articles and books on African-American and women’s studies; she co-edited the first anthology on Black women’s literature, Sturdy Black Bridges: Visions of Black Women in Literature (1980), and co-edited Words of Fire: An Anthology of African-American Feminist Thought (1995).
In addition, she co-wrote Gender Talk: The Struggle for Women’s Equality in African American Communities (2003) with former Spelman President Johnnetta Cole. Her most recent publication is an anthology that she co-edited with Cole, titled Who Should Be First: Feminists Speak Out on the 2008 Presidential Campaign (2010).
Sheftall is also past president of the National Women’s Studies Association and was recently elected to the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.
“We are indeed fortunate to have a scholar of Dr. Sheftall’s caliber coming to our campus who can read and discuss a complex topic like the recent incidents in Charlottesville through the lens of intersectionality informed by her years of research, teaching and activism,” said Marilyn Sanders Mobley, vice president of Case Western Reserve’s Office for Inclusion, Diversity and Equal Opportunity (OIDEO). “We look forward to the dialogue we expect her lecture to stimulate about race, ethnicity, politics, gender, sexuality, class and other dimensions of society.”
The OIDEO sponsors the lecture series to inspire campus dialogue, community engagement, civic education and learning about the national significance of diversity and inclusion. The annual series is presented in the fall and spring semesters.
This article was originally published Sept. 29, 2017.