March 5, 2025
Speaker: Dr. Amy Reid, Senior Manager, PEN America Freedom to Learn.
The value and values of a liberal arts education are increasingly under attack across the United States, and not just in red states. What can we do about it? How can we make the case for the Liberal Arts, Gender Studies and foreign languages when their opponents are setting the terms of the debate?
Speaker bio:
Dr. Amy Reid is the Senior Manager, Freedom to Learn, at PEN America, where she works to support higher education and to push back against legislative censorship on our campuses. Prior to joining PEN in August 2024, she taught for 29 years at New College of Florida where she was a professor of French, director of the Gender Studies Program, and Chair of the Faculty.
She holds a PhD in French from Yale University and is an award-winning translator, specializing in Francophone African fiction. She has collaborated with authors including Véronique Tadjo (Far from My Father (2014), an excerpt of which was published in the 2015 PEN World Voices on-line Anthology), Patrice Nganang (the Cameroon Trilogy, published between 2016 and 2022), Mutt-Lon (The Blunder, 2022) and Blaise Ndala (In the Belly of the Congo (2023)). Her current project is the translation of Marie-Célie Agnant’s novel Rosa the Alligator (forthcoming in 2025), which examines the politics of memory and truth and reconciliation in post-Duvalier Haiti.
Further information
- Location: Althouse 106
- Time: 5:00 pm - 6:00 pm
- Cost: Free