Lectures on Protest Movements, Labor Power Oct. 25

The University of Maine’s 2012 Annual Howard B. Schonberger Peace and Social Justice Lecture on Thursday, Oct. 25 will feature Frances Fox Piven, author and distinguished professor of political science and sociology at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York, who will present “How Protest Movements Change American History” at 7:30 p.m. in Room 100 of D.P. Corbett Hall. She will speak earlier in the day, from 12:30 p.m. to 1:45 p.m., in the Bangor Room of the Memorial Union, on “Does Labor Power Matter: Why the Past Doesn’t Predict the Future,” as part of the university’s Socialist & Marxist Studies Series. Both presentations are free and open to the public.

Piven’s scholarship and activism have focused on social movements, electoral politics and welfare policy. In 1966, she helped found the National Welfare Rights Organization, a grassroots organization of welfare recipients, and has served on the boards of the American Civil Liberties Union and Democratic Socialists of America. She also helped create HumanSERVE, an organization that encouraged making voter registration easier.

Piven, who has published more than a half dozen books in her field of expertise, is being brought to UMaine under the sponsorship of the Howard Schonberger Memorial Lecture Fund, the Department of History and the Women in the Curriculum and Women’s Studies Program. The annual Howard B. Schonberger Memorial Lecture fund was created in 1991 to honor the scholarship and activism of it namesake, a well-known political activist and history professor at the University of Maine.

Contact: George Manlove, (207) 581-3756