Drucilla Barker
Drucilla Barker, Professor of Women’s and Gender Studies, and Director of the Women’s and Gender Studies Program at the University of South Carolina, will speak at this year’s Moe Lecture in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at Gustavus Adolphus College.
Barker is a feminist economist who will present a lecture titled “Caregivers and Other Dangerous Strangers: Rethinking the Paradox of Caring Labor.” This free public lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. Thursday, April 8 in Alumni Hall, located in the O.J. Johnson Student Union.
Barker’s latest research recasts what has been called the paradox of caring labor: paying for care threatens to devalue its relational and self-fulfilling aspects. She argues that the more significant paradox is that the paid care work that much of the relatively prosperous world depends on is being done by disenfranchised and racially stigmatized immigrants who live in isolation from their families and under the continued threat of deportation.
Barker is the co-author of the book Liberating Economics: Feminist Perspectives on Families, Work, and Globalization, which earned distinction as a Choice Outstanding Academic Title in 2005. She has also co-edited the anthologies Towards a Feminist Philosophy of Economics and Feminist Economics and the World Bank: History, Theory, and Policy.
Barker holds a B.A. in philosophy from Sonoma State University and a Ph.D. in economics from the University of Illinois. She is a founding member of the International Association for Feminist Economics.
The Moe Visiting Lectureship is endowed by Robert and Karin Moe in honor of their daughter, Kris Burke Moe, class of 1984. Since its inaugural year in 1997, the Moe Lectureship has afforded Gustavus the opportunity to bring top feminist scholars to campus from the fields of biology, English, nursing, philosophy, history, and theatre.
In addition to their generous support of the Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies lecture, the Moe Family made a $1 million commitment in the fall of 2007 to the John S. Kendall Center for Engaged Learning, which is dedicated to advancing active and interdisciplinary learning across the campus.
For more information about this year’s Moe Lecture, contact Professor of Philosophy and Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies Peg O’Connor at 507-933-7573 or poconnor@gustavus.edu.
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Media Contact: Director of Media Relations and Internal Communication Luc Hatlestad
luch@gustavus.edu
507-933-7510