Historian and journalist Alice Dreger to speak on campus
Alice Dreger, scholar and activist on intersex and gender issues, will speak on campus October 10 as part of the Institute for Freedom and Community’s fall series, “Discrimination and the Search for Truth and Justice.”
Her conversation with Morrison Family Director of the Institute for Freedom & Community and Professor of Religion and Philosophy Edmund Santurri, titled “Truth, Justice, and the Science of Gender,” will begin at 7 p.m. in Tomson 280. It is free and open to the public, and will be streamed live and available on demand online.
Dreger is the author of several books including her best-known Galileo’s Middle Finger: Heretics, Activists, and One Scholar’s Search for Justice, which argues that the pursuit of evidence is the most important ethical imperative of our time.
“I’m always working to find out what’s true in the hope it will lead us to treat each other better,” says Dreger
Alice has a TEDx lecture, “Is Anatomy Destiny,” which has been viewed over a million times. She has appeared as a guest expert on hundreds of media programs, including Oprah, Savage Love, Good Morning America, and NPR, and in many original documentaries, including for A&E, ABC, Discovery, PBS, and HBO.
John Green has named her book One of Us: Conjoined Twins and the Future of Normal as among his favorites. The same book has been praised by Jeffrey Eugenides and Abraham Verghese and was honored by the Gustavus Myers Center for the Study of Bigotry and Human Rights.
Dreger has a Ph.D. in history and philosophy of science from Indiana University.
Established at St. Olaf in 2014, the Institute for Freedom and Community encourages free inquiry and meaningful debate of important political and social issues. Through its range of programming for students, faculty, and the general public, the Institute offers a distinctive opportunity to cultivate civil discourse within the context of the liberal arts.
Visit the Institute’s website for the full list of 2019-20 speakers, and sign up for the quarterly newsletter to receive regular updates and information about Institute programming.