Patten Lecture: Imani Perry

Imani Perry is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, where she also holds affiliations with law and public affairs, jazz studies, and gender and sexuality studies. A public intellectual and interdisciplinary scholar, Perry has written on a range of topics regarding African American experience, legal history, feminist critique, music, literature, and cultural studies. She is the author of six books and numerous other publications, and her writing regularly appears in national newspapers and magazines.

"Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation"

In this lecture, emerging from my book Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation, I will describe how the figure of the patriarch emerged as part and parcel of modernity, the nation-state, the Industrial Revolution, and globalization. Moving from this analysis of the root of patriarchy, I outline how digital media and technology, neoliberalism, and the security state continue to prop up patriarchy. By exploring the past and present of patriarchy in the world we have inherited and are building for the future, I describe how its mechanisms of domination are a necessary precursor to dismantling it.

The William T. Patten Foundation

The William T. Patten Foundation provides funds to bring distinguished scholars or practitioners in the sciences, the humanities and the arts to the Bloomington campus for a week. The foundation has brought over 150 scholars of extraordinary national and international distinction since 1937, making it the oldest lecture series at Indiana University. Lecturers are chosen by a campus-wide faculty committee.

William T. Patten graduated in 1893 with a Bachelor of Arts in history from IU. He then moved to Indianapolis and led a successful career in real estate and politics. He created an endowment for the university in 1931, with the purpose of bringing renowned leaders to the Bloomington campus.