Leading Environmental Justice Scholar Visits Ursinus
On Thursday, April 20th, at 7 PM, Dr. David N. Pellow delivered a lecture on environmental justice to a packed Musser Auditorium. The title of his talk was “The Promise and Challenge of Environmental Justice Studies in the 21st Century.”
Dr. Pellow is Dehlsen Chair and Professor of Environmental Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he directs the Global Environmental Justice Project. A leading figure in the field of Environmental Justice Studies, Dr. Pellow is author or co-author of a number of books, including, most recently, Keywords for Environmental Studies Total Liberation: The Power and Promise of Animal Rights and the Radical Earth Movement; and The Slums of Aspen: Immigrants vs. the Environment in America’s Eden.
On the morning after the talk, students met with Dr. Pellow in one of Dr. Jonathan L. Clark’s courses to discuss an article Dr. Pellow had recently published: “Toward a Critical Environmental Justice Studies: Black Lives Matter as an Environmental Justice Challenge.”
Dr. Pellow’s visit was part of the College’s year-long arts and lecture series on the theme of social inequality. His visit was supported by a number of organizations on campus, including the Anthropology & Sociology Department, the Arts and Lectures Committee, The Parlee Center for Science and the Common Good, the Environmental Studies Department, the History Department, the Peace and Social Justice Studies program, the African American and Africana Studies program, The Latin American Studies program, the American Studies program, and the Applied Ethics program. Several student groups also provided their support, including UC Environmental Action, USAS, and SUN.