Jennifer Finney Boylan, a celebrated author, LGBTQ+ advocate, and prominent voice in the transgender rights movement, will invoke the spirit of American aviation pioneer Amelia Earhart during her Peggy Downes Baskin Ethics Lecture on Tuesday, March 4, at the Music Recital Hall.
Boylan, the inaugural Anna Quindlen Writer-in-Residence and Professor of English at Barnard College, is currently the visiting Scholar-in-Residence at The Humanities Institute, which is housed within the Humanities Division at UC Santa Cruz. Boylan is THI’s first Scholar-in-Residence since the onset of the COVID pandemic, and a fitting scholar to reintroduce this important program, said Professor of Linguistics and THI Faculty Director Pranav Anand.
Launched in 2017, the THI Scholars-in-Residence program aims to bring scholars to Santa Cruz for extended stays, allowing various groups both on and off campus to engage with them. Previous scholars-in-residence have included Tony Michels, the George L. Mosse Associate Professor of American Jewish History at the University of Wisconsin-Madison; Robin Coste Lewis, poet, author, and Professor of English at the University of Southern California; Barry Lam, Associate Professor of Philosophy at Vassar College; and, most recently, Jacqueline Wernimont, Distinguished Professor in Digital Humanities and Social Engagement at Dartmouth College.
“Jennifer Finney Boylan is a public intellectual of rare distinction,” Anand said. “Her words have reached millions through her books and columns, and her work at GLAAD and PEN America has helped advocate for and advance human dignity and freedom. We feel truly privileged to be hosting her as our Scholar-in-Residence during THI’s 25th anniversary and the year in which THI is contending with the theme of Humanity.”
Boylan’s multimedia lecture, entitled Amelia Earhart, Saved from Drowning, will explore the social and political forces that limit human liberty, especially for women and queer people. In this collage of story and song, Boylan speculates on the life of Amelia Earhart after her disappearance on July 2, 1937. Using that event as a springboard, she considers how our social and political structures constrain human liberty and the price that women and queer people must pay for freedom. New Yorker cartoonist Emily Flake has drawn illustrations to complement the story.
“I am haunted by Amelia Earhart,” Boylan said. “I’m also haunted by the way she haunts other people. Why do we care about her eighty years later? There have been many people who have disappeared—why her? Part of it has to do with the fact that she was a woman doing things we didn’t expect women to do, things they hadn’t done before. What are we talking about when we talk about Earhart? What are we missing when we miss her?”
This event is presented by the Humanities Division and THI.
Boylan is also scheduled to read from her new nonfiction book, Cleavage: Men, Women, and The Space Between Us, at 7:00 p.m. this Wednesday, Feb. 26, at Bookshop Santa Cruz. This reading is also co-sponsored by THI.
Boylan’s groundbreaking memoir She's Not There: A Life in Two Genders—the first bestselling book by an openly transgender American—helped redefine the national conversation about being trans in the United States.
Boylan’s distinguished career includes writing several other bestselling books, serving as a contributing opinion writer for The New York Times from 2007 to 2022, and holding leadership roles at prominent organizations such as PEN America, where she is currently president, and GLAAD, where she was national co-chair from 2014 to 2018.
She is also the author of Good Boy: My Life in Seven Dogs (2020), a memoir blending personal reflection with the stories of her beloved pets, and Mad Honey (2022), co-authored with Jodi Picoult.
Boylan’s involvement in social justice issues and her advocacy for LGBTQ+ rights has made her a key figure in the movement for transgender equality. As a writer and speaker, she has broken barriers, offering deep personal insights into the complexities of gender, identity, and society. Her role as a guest on major media platforms such as The Oprah Winfrey Show, Larry King Live, and Fresh Air has helped broaden public understanding of transgender experiences.
Boylan’s visit to UC Santa Cruz comes at a pivotal moment for transgender rights. In her recent New York Times editorial, “I’m A Transgender Woman. This Is Not The Metamorphosis I Was Expecting,” she referenced several recent executive orders targeting transgender individuals. One order directed the Pentagon to review its inclusion of trans soldiers, while another sought to end gender-affirming medical care for those under 19.
“The point, it seems, is to make transgender people’s lives as difficult as possible,” she wrote in the essay. “The point is to isolate our small, vulnerable, maligned community and mock us for our differences. The point is to erase us from the public sphere. The point is to use our tiny, misunderstood population as useful scapegoats upon whom Mr. Trump can blame all of society’s ills.”
Register here for the Peggy Downes Baskin Ethics Lecture on March 4. The event is free and open to the public, but advance registration is strongly encouraged. This event at the Music Recital Hall begins with a reception at 5:30 p.m., followed by Boylan’s lecture at 6:00 p.m. and a Q&A session at 7:00 p.m.
The Peggy Downes Baskin Ethics Lecture Series is a lively forum for the discussion and exploration of ethics-related challenges in human endeavors. The Ethics Lecture is made possible by the Peggy Downes Baskin Humanities Endowment for Interdisciplinary Ethics which enables the Humanities Division to promote a dialogue about ethics and ethics related challenges in an interdisciplinary setting.
The endowment was established in honor of Peggy Downes Baskin’s longtime interest in ethical issues across the academic spectrum.
