FSU to Host Women’s Studies Spring Speaker Series

Mar 7, 2023 12:00 AM

Speaking Events Open to Campus Community and General Public

Frostburg State University’s Women’s Studies will host a Spring Speaker Series featuring three renowned keynotes to include Kim Kelly, Jalessah Jackson and Sesali Bowen. Each talk will be open to the entire campus community as well as the public.

Kim Kelly is an independent journalist, author and organizer whose work focuses on labor, class, gender, race and culture. She will participate in the speaker series to educate her audience on labor resistance; discuss ways that gender, sexuality and race inform labor history research and documentation; and offer insights into current and future labor conditions in the United States.

Kelly’s talk is scheduled for March 14 at 7 p.m. in FSU’s Catherine R. Gira Center for Communications and Information Technology (CCIT). Additionally, she will also be a guest in the Department of Sociology’s Collective Behavior and Social Movements class.

At the end of March, interdisciplinary scholar and organizer Jalessah Jackson will visit FSU to discuss the work they were part of as the Interim Director of Access Reproductive Care (ARC) Southeast, one of the south’s largest abortion resource providers, in the wake of Roe v. Wade being overturned. Jackson’s background is in Black Studies; Women, Gender and Sexuality Studies; and Cultural Studies, and they have years of experience organizing and engaging people in political education around reproductive justice issues.

Jackson will be the featured speaker on March 30 at 7 p.m. in FSU’s CCIT and will also be a guest in two sections of the Department of Sociology’s Introduction to Women’s Studies classes.

Sesali Bowen will conclude the Spring Speaker Series on April 19 at 7 p.m. in CCIT. She is a self-proclaimed “bad fat Black girl”, an author, journalist, podcast host and gender and sexuality scholar. During Bowen’s talk she will explain her conceptualization of “Trap Feminism” and discuss ways that this framework can help people understand how social issues develop, as well as how to move toward a more just future.

In addition to her speaking engagement on April 19, Bowen will also be a guest in the Department of Sociology’s special topics class, “The Sociology of Southern Hip Hop.”

The Spring Speaker Series is sponsored by the FSU Foundation. Funds were provided by The Martha T. and Ralph M. Race Western History Lecture Fund; FSU Departments of Communications, History, Philosophy, Psychology, and Sociology; Leadership Studies; the Office of Diversity, Equity and Inclusion; and the Student Government Association.