Frances Fox Piven, an internationally known scholar, author, and activist, will discuss "The Rich, The Poor, and American Politics" at 5:30 p.m. Wednesday, May 1, in the Case Method Room (1-9576) at the University of Rochester's School of Medicine and Dentistry.
One of the foremost authorities on politics and poverty in the United States, Piven is Distinguished Professor of Political Science and Sociology at the Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York.
She is also the author of a number of books dealing with the development of the welfare state, political movements, and urban politics. Her book Regulating the Poor, co-authored with Richard Cloward, is considered a landmark historical and theoretical analysis of the role of welfare policy. Her major publications also include Poor People's Movements, The New Class War, The Breaking of the American Social Compact, and Why American's Still Don't Vote, and Politicians Like it That Way.
During the 1960s, Pivens was actively involved in the welfare rights movement and in 1983 was a founder of Human SERVE, an organization that promoted coordinating voter registration with driver's license applications. The approach was incorporated in the National Voter Registration Act of 1993, popularly known as the "motor voter bill."
Pivens is a recipient of the Eugene V. Debs Foundation Prize for "published work which evidences social vision and commitment to social justice." She is a winner of the C. Wrights Mills Award of the Society for the Study of Social Problems and the President's Award of the American Public Health Association. In 2000 she was honored with the American Sociological Association's Distinguished Career Award for the Practice of Sociology.
Piven's talk is sponsored by the Departments of Community and Preventive Medicine at the School of Medicine and by the Departments of History and of Political Science at the College. It is free and open to the public. For information, call (585) 275-2052.