Greenberg Distinguished Scholar Program

Kimberlé Crenshaw

30 Years of Theorizing Justice: Intersectionality, Critical Race Theory, and Contemporary Challenges

Sex, Gender, and Sexuality Symposium

In this talk, Kimberlé Crenshaw will expound the concept of intersectionality through the lens of personal narrative, reflecting on formative experiences that shaped her political consciousness as a woman and as a black person and the ways in which those anecdotes directly informed her theorization and application of intersectionality. Her observations are grounded in a backdrop of a rapidly deteriorating political environment in which the destabilization of new and old democracies underscores the naiveté of celebrating the Obama era as “post-racial" and modern political discourse as "intersectional" or even "post-intersectional."

Kimberlé Crenshaw, professor of law at UCLA and Columbia Law School, is a leading authority in the area of civil rights, black feminist legal theory, and race, racism, and the law. Her work has been foundational in two fields of study that have come to be known by terms that she coined: Critical Race Theory and Intersectionality. Crenshaw’s articles have appeared in the Harvard Law Review, National Black Law Journal, Stanford Law Review, and Southern California Law Review. She is the founding coordinator of the Critical Race Theory Workshop and the co-editor of the volume Critical Race Theory: Key Documents That Shaped the Movement. Crenshaw has lectured widely on race matters, addressing audiences across the country as well as in Europe, India, Africa, and South America.

Free and open to the public.

Established on the occasion of Reed's centennial with a gift from Dan Greenberg ’62 and his wife and philanthropic partner Susan Steinhauser, the Greenberg Distinguished Scholar Program aims to bring visiting scholars to campus to support the work of students and provide faculty with the opportunity for in-depth intellectual exchange with a prominent member in their field.

Events sponsored by the Greenberg Distinguished Scholar Program.