Introducing H&S's 2022-2023 Speaker in Humanities Speaker: Roberto Lovato

By Raul Palma, April 14, 2023

Event: Friday, April 21st, from 4:30 to 5:30 in the Park Center for Business 111

Join us for a conversation with Roberto Lovato on what it means to investigate one's story, and to do so as an activist. Moderated by Jonathan Ablard (history), learn about Roberto’s work organizing and leading campaigns, from the Drop the I-Word Campaign (2010), which successfully removed the term “illegal immigrant” for the Associated Press Style Book, to his more recent involvement in #DignidadLiterararia with Myriam Gurba and David Bowles—a campaign for equity and literary justice for the more than 60 million Latinx persons left off of bookshelves.

Roberto Lovato is our distinguished speaker in the humanities. He is a human rights activist, award-winning journalist, and the author of Unforgetting: A Memoir of Family, Migration, Gangs, and Revolution in the Americas. A recipient of a reporting grant from the Pulitzer Center, Lovato has chronicled some of the most pressing issues facing communities across the US and the rest of the Americas. Stretching across the Americas, Lovato’s reporting opens our eyes to the connections between US foreign policy and the diaspora communities.

About the The Distinguished Speaker in the Humanities Series

Roberto Lovato

The Distinguished Speaker in the Humanities Series was inaugurated in 2000 to emphasize the humanities as a critical component of a meaningful education. Our series brings to Ithaca College scholars from across the humanities disciplines whose work embodies our belief that the humanities belong to and serve the greater good. Inaugurated by Robert Pinsky, poet laureate of the United States from 1997 to 2000, the series has given audience to an impressive array of intellectuals who have challenged us to work toward a more just and sustainable world.

Each distinguished speaker engages with the campus and regional community through a lecture that is free and open to the public. Prior to the lecture, Ithaca College students and faculty will have an opportunity to engage with the invited speaker through a class visit, or open session.

A committee of humanities faculty work to identify scholars, artists, and intellectuals. As a criterion, the committee looks for those whose work illuminates the relationship between humanistic forms of knowledge and the texts and institutions that give shape to our worlds.

Individuals with disabilities requiring accommodations should contact Raul Palma at RPalma@Ithaca.edu or 3059896094. We ask that requests for accommodations be made as soon as possible.