Saint Mary’s "Jan Term" Speaker Series Presents Cultural Historian Rebecca Solnit

What’s at risk when ideological, political, physical and cultural borders are crossed? Find out at the 2012 January Term Speaker Series at Saint Mary’s College of California. 

The featured guest speakers for the annual lecture series, which explores the theme of "Crossing Borders," includes San Francisco cultural historian Rebecca Solnit, who will will speak on "Crossing the Public/Private Divide," exploring how the boundaries between public and private life are policed and how they break open in crises such as natural disasters and during moments of dissent such as the Occupy movement.

The San Francisco writer says "For me all this is also about the deep and unacknowledged desires people have to live in public, to have a voice, to feel like a member of society, a participant, not an observer."

Solnit is the author of thirteen books about art, landscape, public and collective life, ecology, politics, hope, meandering, reverie, and memory. They include November 2010’s "Infinite City: A San Francisco Atlas," a book of 22 maps and nearly 30 collaborators; 2009's "A Paradise Built in Hell: The Extraordinary Communities that Arise in Disaster," and many others. 

The speaker series is an annual staple of the College’s intense month-long “Jan Term,” when students are encouraged to step out of their comfort zones, explore new intellectual territory and take classes that often embody the Lasallian tradition of social action.