Intimate Politics:
A ROUNDTABLE

February 3 / 1:30–5 PM / Humanities Lecture Hall

Bettina Aptheker’s memoir Intimate Politics: How I Grew Up Red, Fought for Free Speech, and Became a Feminist Rebel was published by Seal Press in October. In it she describes growing up as the daughter of Herbert Aptheker, a leading theoretician of the Communist Party USA during the McCarthy era, and her own experiences as a leader of the Berkeley Free Speech Movement and a feminist activist. She also speaks of her memories of childhood sexual abuse. Margot Adler of National Public Radio calls the book “a deeply forgiving work…the portrait of someone who has freed herself to enter a rich and nuanced life,” while historian Blanche Wiesen Cook comments, “Vivid and poetic, it is a gift for the future we urgently need now. Everyone interested in the ongoing struggles for peace and justice, civil liberties, and human rights will want to read this lyrical, stirring, profoundly moving work.” This roundtable brings together a distinguished panel of scholar-activists to reflect on Aptheker’s book, the historical moment she recounts, and the broader political issues raised by this intimate history of left activism.

Bettina Aptheker is Professor of Feminist Studies at UC Santa Cruz. In addition to Intimate Politics, her books include Tapestries of Life: Women’s Work, Women’s Consciousness, and the Meaning of Daily Experience (Massachusetts, 1989) and The Morning Breaks: the Trial of Angela Davis (1976; Cornell, 1999).

Johnnetta B. Cole is President of Bennett College for Women, President Emerita of Spelman College, and was formerly Presidential Distinguished Professor of Anthroplogy, Women’s Studies, and African-American Studies at Emory University. Her books include Dream The Boldest Dreams: And Other Lessons of Life (Longstreet, 1997) and Conversations: Straight Talk with America’s Sister President (Doubleday, 1993).

Angela Davis is Professor of the History of Consciousness at UC Santa Cruz. In recent years a persistent theme of her work has been the range of social problems associated with incarceration and the generalized criminalization of those communities that are most affected by poverty and racial discrimination. Her most recent books are Abolition Democracy (Seven Stories, 2005) and Are Prisons Obsolete? (Seven Stories, 2003). She is completing a book entitled Prisons and History (Columbia, forthcoming).

Ericka Huggins is a former member of the Black Panther Party, political prisoner, human rights activist, poet, and teacher. As the longest-standing woman in Black Panther Party leadership, from 1967-1981, she brings a unique perspective to the much-debated challenges and successes of the Party. She teaches Women’s Studies at California State University, East Bay, and is a Human Diversity consultant for educational and community-based organizations in the Pacific Northwest.

Blanche Wiesen Cook is Distinguished Professor of History at John Jay College of the City University of New York, renowned for her work in women’s history and the history of U.S. international relations. She is the author of the bestselling two-volume work Eleanor Roosevelt: A Biography (Viking, 1992 and 1999).

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