Rutgers Prof. Catharine R. Stimpson will present the 1993 Davis-Markert-Nickerson Lecture on Academic and Intellectual Freedom at 4 p.m. Feb. 18 in Rackham Amphitheater. The free, public lecture will be followed by a reception.
Stimpson’s lecture is titled “Dirty Minds, Dirty Bodies, Clean Speech.”
Dean of the graduate school and vice provost for graduate education at Rutgers in 1986–92, Stimpson is editor of a book series for the University of Chicago Press. She also is a member of the editorial group of Change magazine and writes a regular column for the periodical.
A founding editor of Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society, Stimpson was the first director of the Women’s Center of Barnard College and of the Institute for Research on Women at Rutgers.
Stimpson is author of the novel Class Notes and more than 150 monographs, essays, stories and reviews appearing in such publications as Transatlantic Review, Nation, New York Times Book Review, Critical Inquiry and boundary 2. A collection of essays, Where the Meanings Are, appeared in 1988.
Stimpson has chaired the New York State Council for the Humanities, the National Council for Research on Women and the Ms. magazine Board of Scholars. She was president of the Modern Language Association in 1990 and is now chair of the National Advisory Committee of the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation.
Educated at Bryn Mawr College, Cambridge University and Columbia University, Stimpson holds honorary degrees from Upsala College, Monmouth College, Bates College, Florida International University, the State University of New York at Albany, Hamilton College and the University of Arizona. She also has won Fulbright and Rockefeller Humanities fellowships.
The Davis-Markert-Nickerson Lecture, inaugurated in 1991, is named for three U-M faculty members who suffered University sanctions for refusing to testify about their political views in the McCarthy era—H. Chandler Davis, Clement Markert and Mark Nickerson.
The annual lecture is supported by the Academic Freedom Lecture Fund, a tax-exempt organization dedicated to fostering discussions, seminars and lectures on academic and intellectual freedoms.
Contributions to the fund are encouraged and donors will receive one-year memberships in the fund and notices of future events. Contributions should be sent to Peggie J. Hollingsworth, Academic Freedom Lecture Fund, P.O. Box 4152, Ann Arbor, MI 48106.
