2005 Andrea Carson Coley Lecture: Professor Kendall Thomas

(official press release)

Professor Kendall Thomas will deliver the 11th annual Andrea Carson Coley Lecture April 1, 2005 at the University Chapel

Kendall Thomas is a Nash Professor of Law and founding Co-Director of the Center for the Study of Law and Culture at Columbia University in the City of New York.

In his talk, “Condoleezza Rice and Wanda Jean Allen,” Professor Thomas will examine the role of race and homophobia in a capital punishment trial. Wanda Jean Allen, a Black lesbian, was executed in Oklahoma when she was convicted for the murder of her girlfriend. Thomas explains how the prosecution attempted to “masculinize” Allen, thus encouraging jurors to see in her the dangerous hypersexuality that Black men represent.

At Columbia University since 1984, Professor Thomas' teaching and research interests include U.S. and comparative constitutional law, human rights, legal philosophy, feminist legal theory, Critical Race Theory and Law and Sexuality. His writings have appeared in several academic journals and volumes of collected essays. He is a co-editor of Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Founded the Movement (The New Press, 1996) and What's Left of Theory? (Routledge Press, 2000). Thomas was an inaugural recipient of the Berlin Prize Fellowship of the American Academy in Berlin, Germany and a member of the Special Committee of the American Center in Paris, France. Past chair of the Jurisprudence and Law & Humanities sections of the Association of American Law Schools. Founding member of the Majority Action Caucus of the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, Sex Panic! and the AIDS Prevention Action League. Former member and Vice-Chair of the Board of Directors of Gay Men's Health Crisis.

The Andrea Carson Coley Lecture was endowed by a donation by Andrew and Kathy Coley in memory of their daughter Andrea Carson Coley (1972-1993), who was a certificate candidate in the Women's Studies Program. Each year, the Andrea Carson Coley Lecture brings to campus scholars who are doing cutting-edge research in the field of lesbian and gay studies.

Women's Studies is honored to have Professor Thomas as our 2005 Andrea Carson Coley Lecturer. This year's lecture will be April 1, at 11:00am in the University Chapel on the University of Georgia campus. For more information contact Jené Baclawski.