Author Barbara Ehrenreich to Speak at Yale

Award-winning social critic Barbara Ehrenreich will speak at Yale on Wednesday, Feb. 11, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 208 of the Whitney Humanities Center, 53 Wall St. Her talk, “From Carnival to Revolution: Some Questions about the Politics of Ecstasy,” is a Henry Luce Seminar. Ehrenreich will also be guest of honor at a master’s tea at Ezra Stiles College, 19 Tower Parkway, Feb. 12, 4 p.m., when she will speak on “Blood Rites: A New Evolutionary Perspective on War.” Both events are free and open to the public.

Ehrenreich’s latest book, “Blood Rites: Origins and History of the Passions of War (1997),” was called “brilliant” by the New York Review of Books. Her 1990 collection of essays, “The Worst Years of Our Lives: Irreverent Notes from a Decade of Greed,” was described by The New York Times as “elegant, trenchant, savagely angry, morally outraged and outrageously funny.” Among her other books are “Fear of Falling: The Inner Life of the Middle Class” (nominated for a National Book Critics’ Award in 1989), “The Snarling Citizen,” “The Hearts of Men: American Dreams and the Flight from Commitment,” “The American Health Empire: Power, Profits and Politics” (with John Ehrenreich) and “Witches, Midwives and Nurses: A History of Women Healers.”

Ehrenreich has written essays for Time magazine since 1990, and was a regular columnist for The Guardian, 1991-1995. Her articles, reviews, essays and humor have appeared in Ms., Esquire, The Atlantic Monthly, Harper’s, The Nation, The New Republic, Social Policy, Mirabella, the magazine sections of The New York Times and The Washington Post, and newspapers throughout the world.

Her honors include a grant for research and writing from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation in 1995, a Ford Foundation Award for Humanistic Perspectives on Contemporary Society, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and a National Magazine Award for Excellence in Reporting. She earned a Ph.D. degree in biology from the Rockefeller University and a B.A. from Reed College, and holds honorary degrees from several colleges and universities.

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