Saint Mary’s "Jan Term" Speaker Series Presents Hip Hop Playwright Ariel Luckey

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

The featured guest speakers for the annual lecture series, which explores the theme of "Crossing Borders," includes Oakland-based hip hop artist, community activist and playwright Ariel Luckey, who challenges audiences to examine the legacies of white privilege by holding a mirror up to his own family's journey through American history.

His lecture, entitled "Free Land: Race and Land in United States," expands on areas explored in his one man play "Free Land."

In the solo hip hop theater production, Luckey, the descendant of white homesteaders from Wyoming, examines the ugly underside of a free government land grant from the 1860s -- a grant that gave his ranching family opportunity, but which in reality was, as he describes, part of a “legacy of theft and genocide in the Wild Wild West."

Luckey's community and performance work dances in the crossroads of education, art, and activism. The Oakland-based acclaimed poet, actor, and playwright was named a “visionary” by Utne Reader in 2008.

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.