Pacific Institute is very honored to welcome Dr. Bettina Aptheker

We proudly invite you to join us for an evening as we listen to and learn from Bettina Aptheker, PhD, an eloquent and beloved prominent scholar and esteemed professor of feminist studies at U.C. Santa Cruz, as she talks about Ageism and Feminism as parallel constructs.

Of these subjects, Aptheker says, "... I love breaking down these old canons... and I love the courage. I love watching students’ eyes pop open when they see the light."

Pacific Institute’s mission of teaching awareness and regaining a place for elders welcomes Bettina Aptheker who had learnt to name consciousness as a tool for oppression. American society suffers from collective Alzheimer’s, says Studs Terkel, "and the young are suffering from it the most severely. We don’t know anything about the past and we don’t seem to want to know, he says about the lack of interest of young generations for the “old”

Dr. Aptheker would discuss how the women’s movement has affected women of age. The women who took what they learned as activists in the civil-rights movement and applied it to the rampant sexism of the civil-rights and black-power movements - who participated in the first sweeping consciousness-raising process of naming the circumstances of oppressed individuals.

Since language is a strong issue for the old, we are interested to hear what such a scholar has to say about how growing old has affected the perspective of women who’ve struggled for two decades with language-embedded sexism and possibly what she sees as the role for those “who still battle with dragons”

About Dr: Aptheker:

Bettina Aptheker, Ph.D., History of Consciousness
Professor Feminist Studies Department, UCSC

Aptheker has been a prominent activist for more than 40 years in the women’s, peace, civil rights, and lesbian movements. A member of the University of California, Santa Cruz faculty since 1980 and a founder of the UCSC’s Feminist Studies , Professor Aptheker has been known as one of the most charismatic characters at UCSC campus, and her introduction to feminism class has drawn large audiences for nearly a quarter century. She is author of several books, including Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness and the Meaning of Daily Experience; The Morning Breaks: The Trial of Angela Davis; and more recently, her stunning new memoir: Intimate Politics: How I Grew up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel. She has been honored for her work in teaching and activism by numerous groups, and has been the recipient of the highest awards bestowed annually by the UC Santa Cruz Alumni Association: The Distinguished Teaching Award.

As quoted by Judith Wellner of the Mid-County Post, “...besides her current introduction to feminism class, she also mentors many undergrad and graduate students in their teaching and research. In her free time, Bettina attends baseball games, frequents the opera, and travels as much as she can. She also spends time with her three grandsons... and lives with her partner of many years, Kate Miller.”

We are honored to welcome Dr. Aptheker to Pacific Institute.
For more information on the lecture, call (415) 861-3455

Where:

Pacific Institute - Laguna Grove Care
624 Laguna Street, Roof Top Garden (Enclosed)
San Francisco, CA 94102

More on Bettina Aptheker

¹Studs Terkel. Book dedication In Coming of Age: The Story of Our Century by Those Who'Ve Lived It. St. Martin's Press; 1st St. Martin's Griffin Ed edition (September 1996)