Scripps College has announced its lineup of writers, speakers, and performers for the spring 2020 season of its signature public events series, Scripps Presents. Tickets are required for all events.
“This spring we’re asking our audience to rethink our world through the lenses of both art and ideas, from the body to the body politic,” said Corrina Lesser, artistic director of Scripps Presents. “We’re excited to host Cecile Richards, who, in addition to her years as president of Planned Parenthood, founded a tremendous new initiative, Supermajority, which focuses on women’s activism and is dedicated to mobilizing a multiracial, intergenerational community. We’re also looking forward to the performance by Alice Sheppard, whose choreography challenges traditional assumptions about which bodies can dance and how.”
Legendary women musicians headline the season with thought-provoking conversations and performances. Indie rock icons Ani DiFranco and Liz Phair will discuss issues of gender in the music industry, the evolution of songwriting, and their recently released memoirs, while Grammy Award-winner Gaby Moreno will bring her genre-defying “Spanish folk-soul” to Scripps.
This season highlights two challenging and inspiring new dance pieces. Choreographer and artist-in-residence Alice Sheppard will perform her latest work, Where Good Souls Fear, an investigation of excess, minimalism, and the intersection of disability, gender, and race. Scripps Presents returns to Los Angeles with Scripps Assistant Professor of Dance Kevin Williamson’s presentation of Safe and Sound, a meditation on self-preservation and queer solidarity, at Stomping Grounds L.A.
Emerging and established literary thought leaders will also bring their new work to campus this season. New Yorker essayist Jia Tolentino will discuss a wide range of topics from her collection, Trick Mirror, with Mary Routt Chair in Writing R.O. Kwon. In partnership with the National Book Foundation, Pulitzer Prize-winning poet Natasha Trethewey will join National Book Award-winning memoirist Sarah M. Broom to share their personal and literary connections to New Orleans. Lois Lowry, who won the Newbery Medal for her novel The Giver, will discuss her new book, On the Horizon. Bestselling author Susan Orlean, NPR’s Fresh Air book critic Maureen Corrigan, and The Paris Review Editor-in-Chief Emily Nemens will each reflect on their love of reading and writing.
Activists and social justice leaders will come to Scripps to discuss issues of society and the body. Cecile Richards, the former president of Planned Parenthood Federation of America and Planned Parenthood Action Fund, will share her thoughts on increasing affordable access to reproductive health services and mobilizing women voters. Sonya Renee Taylor, founder of The Body Is Not an Apology movement, will lead a discussion dismantling society’s body preoccupations. The season will also celebrate the life of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and the 50th anniversary of the Office of Black Student Affairs with the Beyoncé Mass, a Christian worship service that uses the music and personal life of Beyoncé to foster an empowering conversation about Black women.
Founded in 2016 as Scripps College’s premiere public events program, Scripps Presents is committed to hosting thought-provoking conversations with emerging and established writers, performers, and thinkers. Additional information about Scripps Presents, including a complete calendar and ticketing information, is available on the College’s website.