Prof. Dr. Angela Y. Davis will hold a discussion with Dr. Renée Gadsden entitled “Art & Life”
at the University of Applied Arts Vienna.
One of the most influential activists of the last two generations,
Angela Davis has always been an important symbolic figure of the Black Power Movement. Her political activities resulted in
imprisonment for almost two years. Yet Davis remains tireless in advocating against oppression of all kinds, focusing on the
prison industrial complex, racism, and capitalism.
“We have to talk about liberating minds as well as liberating
society.”
--Angela Y. Davis
Professor Emerita Dr. Angela Y. Davis is known internationally for her continuous
work to combat all forms of injustice at home in the U.S. and abroad. Over the years she has been active as a teacher, writer,
scholar, philosopher, lecturer, and organizer. She is a living witness to the epic struggles for human rights of the contemporary
era. Less well known is that Angela Davis is also an accomplished poet and art theorist.
“Art is special because
of its ability to influence feelings as well as knowledge.”
--Angela Y. Davis
Angela Davis majored in French
at Brandeis University, writing her senior thesis on the novels of Alain Robbe-Grillet and graduating with the highest honors.
She studied at the Sorbonne. Her further studies took her to Goethe University, the heart of the Frankfurt School, to work
with Theodor W. Adorno. After two years in Germany, Davis returned to the United States to finish her doctorate with Herbert
Marcuse at the University of California at San Diego. Her doctoral dissertation dealt with Immanuel Kant’s theory of violence.
“Progressive
art can assist people to learn not only about the objective forces at work in the society in which they live, but also about
the intensely social character of their interior lives. Ultimately, it can propel people toward social emancipation.”
--Angela
Y. Davis
While Prof. Dr. Angela Y. Davis is famous for her enlightened perspectives on gender, class, and race,
she is also a practicing vegan, and includes speciesism in her activist paradigm.
“I usually don’t mention that
I’m vegan but that has evolved? I think it’s the right moment to talk about it because it is part of a revolutionary perspective.
[?] I think there is a connection between, and I can’t go further than this, the way we treat animals and the way we treat
people who are at the bottom of the hierarchy.” --Angela Y. Davis
Contact
Department
of Art Theory
Univ.-Lect. Dr. Renée Gadsden
Email: renee.gadsden@uni-ak.ac.at
Telephone: 71133 6501
