Activist Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz to Speak at Muhlenberg
On September 23 at 7 p.m., Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, writer, poet, teacher, scholar and activist in progressive movements, (including anti-war, LGBT, feminism, anti-racism and labor), will give a talk at Muhlenberg College in Miller Forum, Moyer Hall.Thursday, September 11, 2008 11:22 AM
Kaye/Kantrowitz’s talk, entitled “Jewish/Queer/Bodies/Borders: Where have all the Butches gone? Can I ever go home? and other transgressions…”, is co-sponsored by Muhlenberg’s Gay-Straight Alliance, Hillel, Multicultural Life, Counseling Center, the Psychology Department, the Office of the Chaplain, the Institute for Jewish-Christian Understanding and The Posen Foundation. The event is free and open to the public. A dessert reception will follow.
Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz is among the most creative, provocative and courageous thinkers and writers. She stands at the dangerous intersection where race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and class cross and clash, offering tools to proceed with wisdom. A pioneer in women's studies, she taught the first such course at the University of California at Berkeley in Comparative Literature, where she earned her Ph.D. Since then, she has taught all over the U.S., twice as a distinguished chair--at Hamilton College and at Brooklyn College/CUNY--and in fields as diverse as Jewish Studies, Women's Studies, Urban Studies, Race Theory, Public Policy, Gender and Queer Studies. For five years she directed the Queens College/CUNY Worker Education Extension Center in Manhattan.
Kaye/Kantrowitz currently teaches at Queens College in Jewish Studies, History and Comparative Literature, and recently taught in the Bard College Prison Initiative. Born and raised in Brooklyn and a graduate of City College/CUNY, she worked in the Harlem Civil Rights Movement as a teenager and continues to be active in progressive movements. She gave up a tenured teaching position to return to New York to work against racism in the Jewish community. Her work is widely published and anthologized in the feminist, LGBT and progressive Jewish press. She co-founded a radio program at WBAI (99.5 FM), Beyond the Pale, and continues to guest-produce segments, especially interviewing writers about their work.
