Contact: Joey Sprague, sociology department, (785) 864-9421 or email Joey Sprague
LAWRENCE --An internationally known social theorist and researcher of masculinity and men's studies will speak at 3:30 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 19, in Alderson Auditorium of the Kansas Union on the University of Kansas campus.
KU's Department of Sociology has invited R.W. Connell of the University of Sydney, Australia, one of the most influential theorists of gender in sociology, to give the annual Carroll D. Clark distinguished lecture. Connell's lecture, "Understanding Men: Gender and the New International Research on Masculinities," is free to the public.
Connell's most recent book, "Masculinities," was published on three continents and has been translated into Italian, German and Swedish. His new book, "The Men and the Boys," will be published in October.
Connell will offer his perspective on the rapidly developing research on masculinity -- what it is; how it is maintained, threatened, and changed; how it shapes every social institution--while challenging the audience members to think globally about issues they usually think of locally.
At the University of Sydney, Connell is a professor of education. He was formerly professor of sociology at University of California, Santa Cruz, and at Macquarie University in Australia.
The Clark lecture is named for Carroll D. Clark, a former KU professor of sociology who died in 1978. Clark taught and served as department chair from 1933 to 1962 at KU, retiring in 1968.
In 1992, Foline Eppstein Gartside of Los Angeles, who received a bachelor's degree in liberal arts and sciences in 1931 and a master's degree in sociology in 1937 at KU, left endowments for KU's departments of sociology and of anthropology. The sociology department uses these funds to support the Clark Distinguished Lectureship, continuing Professor Clark's mission of bringing sociology to bear on contemporary social problems by inviting an outstanding sociologist to Lawrence each year to share his insights and research findings regarding a contemporary social issue.