January 28 - The 2009 Whitworth-Muldrow Lectureship at Shorter College will focus on “Gender, Justice and American Environmental History.” The event will be held Feb. 24 at 11 a.m. inside Brookes Chapel. The public is invited at no charge.

The bi-annual event will feature Emory professor Dr. Ellen G. Spears. Spears taught American Studies as a visiting assistant professor in the Graduate Institute of the Liberal Arts at Emory University during 2006 and 2007, and now teaches courses in Emory’s Department of Environmental Studies.

Formerly associate director of the Southern Regional Council, an Atlanta-based civil rights research institute, Spears served as managing editor of the SRC’s quarterly journal, Southern Changes, for a decade.

Spears also served as a contributing writer for “The Case for Extending and Amending the Voting Rights Act,” with Laughlin McDonald and Daniel Levitas, on a report prepared for Congress and presented to the House Committee on the Judiciary in March 2006. This report was part of the reauthorization of key provisions of the 1965 Voting Rights Act.