Humanities Lecture: Environmental Justice as Freedom

California State University, Chico’s Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities and Department of Philosophy present Julie Sze in the lecture Environmental Justice as Freedom. This lecture takes place Thursday, Oct. 3 at 7:30 p.m. in Recital Hall. This event is free and open to the public. 

Julie Sze is a professor and the founding chair of American studies at the University of California, Davis. She also is the founding director of the Environmental Justice Project for the UC Davis’ John Muir Institute for the Environment. Sze is actively involved with the students at UC Davis. For 15 years, she has been involved with the UC Presidents’ Postdoctoral Fellowship Program, where she is a mentor for first generation and low-income graduate students. She also teaches many classes, including “Nature & Culture,” “Introduction to American Studies,” “Methods in American Studies,” “Environmental Justice” and “Consumption.”

Sze researches environmental justice and environmental inequality; culture and environment; race, gender and power; and urban and community health and activism. She has authored several books and has published over 45 journal articles and book chapters on this research. Her books include Noxious New York: The Racial Politics of Urban Health and Environmental Justice (2006), Fantasy Islands: Chinese Dreams and Ecological Fears in an Age of Climate Crisis (2015) and Environmental Justice in a Moment of Danger (coming in 2019). She is also the editor of Sustainability: Approaches to Environmental Justice and Social Power (2018). Her book Noxious New York won the 2008 John Hope Franklin Publication Prize.

Sze has presented her research to numerous different audiences. She has been the keynote speaker at international conferences and events in Germany, China, Italy, Abu Dhabi, France and Canada. She has spoken at over 65 colleges and universities in the United States. She has also been interviewed for print and radio.

For those who need special seating accommodations, please call 530-898-6333. More information is available online at the School of the Arts website and Facebook page.

Cosponsored by the Department of Comparative Religion and Humanities and the Department of Philosophy.

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Story by Shelby Casey, School of the Arts publicity assistant