Social Critic Barbara Ehrenreich to Read and Lecture during Campus Visit

Social critic, essayist, and journalist Barbara Ehrenreich will visit Ithaca College October 2–6 to kick off the second year of the Department of Writing’s Distinguished Visiting Writers Series. In addition to conducting five master classes with students and faculty, Ehrenreich will deliver two free public presentations.

On Monday, October 2, she will speak on "Down and Out in Post-Welfare America." The lecture, which begins at 8:00 p.m. in the Klingenstein Lounge in Egbert Hall, will examine recent welfare reform and the difficulties of surviving on the minimum wage. Ehrenreich will also give a reading from selections of her nonfiction on Thursday, October 5, in Park Hall Auditorium at 7:30 p.m.

Born in Montana, Ehrenreich earned a bachelor’s degree in chemistry and physics in 1963 and a doctorate in cell biology in 1968. While being trained in the sciences, however, she became involved in various social causes, including labor union organization and expansion of low-income housing and educational opportunities for the underprivileged. These experiences influenced her to become a social activist and writer instead of a scientist.

Her most recent book, The Snarling Citizen, a collection of essays that appeared in the Nation, Mother Jones, Ms., the New Republic, and other periodicals, was published in 1995. An earlier collection, The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed, was described by the New York Times as "elegant, trenchant, savagely angry, morally outraged, and outrageously funny." Says columnist Ellen Goodman, "Ehrenreich’s scorn withers, her humor stings, and her radical light shines on."

In addition to essay collections, Ehrenreich has written a novel, Kipper’s Game, an anti-utopian fantasy, as well as seven books on political and social history. One of them, Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class, was nominated for a National Book Critics Circle Award in 1989. Due to be published in the spring of 2001 is Nickeled and Dimed: On (not) Getting by in America, which reflects her continuing commitment to social justice.

Ehrenreich has been a guest on various television and radio talk shows, including Today, Crossfire, Nightline, and All Things Considered. She is an honorary chair of the Democratic Socialists of America and a speaker for Feminists for Free Expression.

The Distinguished Visiting Writers Series has previously hosted William Kennedy, Judy Grahn, and Joy Williams. For more information contact Linda Godfrey, assistant professor of writing, at 274-3138.