Social Justice Is Foregrounded in School of History and Sociology Spring Speakers Series Encompassing Power, Inequity, and Change

Posted November 25, 2019

For over two decades, the Georgia Institute of Technology School of History and Sociology's (HSOC) Speaker Series has brought world-renowned academics to campus, introducing students to critical perspectives on a range of issues while broadening HSOC's scope by connecting with organizations across Georgia Tech. 

HSOC Associate Professor and Speaker Series Chair Jennifer Singh recently announced the lectures for 2020, which are centered on the theme of "Social Justice: Power, Inequity, and Change."

"Since I became Chair of the HSOC Speaker Series in Spring 2018, our committee wanted to shape the speaker series around focused themes that cut across different disciplinary approaches," Singh said. "In Fall 2019, for example, our theme was on global environments that included historians, sociologists, and science and technology scholars who shared their research on a range of environmental issues, such as social and environmental impacts of climate change or early industrialization. Since Black History Month and Women’s History Month occur in February and March, respectively, we wanted the Spring 2020 Speaker Series to focus on timely social justice issues."

The topic list for the Spring 2020 Speaker Series, which is generated by an HSOC Speaker's Committee in addition to input from HSOC faculty and graduate students, cuts across a variety of issues from voter suppression to health justice. The speakers include some of the leading researchers and advocates for social justice such as Carol Anderson, Charles Howard Candler Professor of African American Studies at Emory University, and Daniel Dawes, Director of the Satcher Health Leadership Institute at Morehouse School of Medicine.

The Speaker Series is also designed to integrate into key areas of HSOC's curriculum including its Social Justice minor. 

"The HSOC speaker series in its current form is designed to bring guest speakers to campus whose research aligns with key themes taught in our HTS graduate and undergraduate courses," Singh said. "For example, for our Spring 2020 Social Justice Speaker Series, we are encouraging HSOC faculty to offer incentives to their students to attend the talk and if appropriate include a select article, book chapter, or book written by the speaker to allow for enhanced student learning and engagement. Our HTS courses that are part of the Social Justice Minor will also benefit from the series, as well as courses that address issues of health, immigration, race, gender or other inequities."

The Speaker Series also serves a means of fostering connections across campus as well as across the country. For example, in the Fall 2019 Speaker Series on Global Environments, two of the lectures were co-sponsored with the Atlanta Global Studies Center in the School of Modern Languages. This cross-campus collaboration continues for the Spring 2020 Speaker Series, which includes lectures co-sponsored by the Society for Women Engineers and the Center for Women, Science, and Technology.

"Connecting Georgia Tech students to broader historical and contemporary issues as it relates to their own learning as a college student and future career is paramount," Singh said. "In my courses, for example, I always start with the idea that in order to understand our personal issues we must understand the social and historical contexts that shapes our experiences. Our HSOC Speaker Series brings both historical and sociological perspectives in relation to cross-cutting issues of import to help broaden student’s perspectives to wider issues."

A full list of speakers and topics for the HSOC Spring 2020 Speaker Series can be found here. 

HSOC and the School of Modern Languages are units of the Ivan Allen College of Liberal Arts.