Ardel Thomas in Conversation with Roosevelt Fellows

Ardel Thomas, a Women's and Queer Studies scholar, will conduct a discussion with fellows from Roosevelt's Center on Feminism and Center on Sexual Orientation about the importance and policy implications of teaching Women's and Queer Studies in higher education.

Thomas received her Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford in 1998, the same year she won a gold medal in Powerlifting at the Gay Games in Amsterdam; she won a second gold medal in 2002 in Sydney. She has been a queer activist since her undergraduate days at CU Boulder, where she directed the Lesbian Caucus. While at Stanford, she directed the Community Writing Program for 7 years and, with Carolyn Ross, co-authored a book on service-learning entitled Writing for Real. Thomas has volunteered at the Women's Building in San Francisco and the International Gay and Lesbian Human Rights Commission, and in 2003, she piloted a Queer Rhetoric course at Stanford. Her publications focus on queer studies in Victorian British popular culture. Thomas currently teaches Women's and Queer Studies in Kentucky.

The Roosevelt Institution, the nation's first student think tank, is organizing and mobilizing a new generation of progressive voices, moving innovative, pragmatic policy off college campuses and into public discourse. This event is sponsored by the Roosevelt Institution's Center on Feminism. For more information about the Center, please contact Jessica Verrilli at jessicav@stanford.edu.