San Bernardino Valley College will welcome respected scholar and anthropologist Juli Grigsby Ph.D., to ponder a headier discussion that may hit closer to home for some students than their traditional textbook studies.

In these turbulent times, Dr. Grigsby raises the discourse up a few notches around her socio-cultural specialties, including critical race theory, feminist and queer theory, urban ethnography or studies in city life, women’s health and violence, and U.S. Social Movements.

On Tuesday, March 27, San Bernardino Valley College Arts, Lectures, and Diversity committee hosts visiting lecturer Dr. Grisby, assistant professor of Anthropology at Haverford College, who will address some of the more pressing matters of the day. The event starts at 6:00 p.m. in the SBVC Business Building, Room 100.

Originally from the inland empire, Dr. Grigsby has lectured on race theory at the University of California, Riverside.   She holds two bachelor’s degrees from the University of California, Los Angeles in Anthropology and Chicana and Chicano Studies. She holds a master’s degree and a doctorate from the University of Texas at Austin. She also lectures at Harvard University, and she is the past recipient of Davis Putter Fellowships and a Humanities, Arts, Science, Technology & Advanced Collaboratory Scholar.

Among her many honors, she has been recognized with the Ronald E. McNair Scholar Graduate Scholar: Continuing Scholar Fellowship; Zora Neal Hurston Travel Award – Association of Feminist Anthropologists; and John Warfield Center for African And African Diaspora Studies Graduate Student Travel Award. She is also a noted photographer, and author of her current book project, “Grim Sleeper: Gender, Violence, and Reproductive Justice in Los Angeles.”

San Bernardino Valley College Sociology Professor Anthony Blacksher commended Dr. Melissa King, Faculty Chair for the Anthropology Department, for her intentional outreach to bring stellar anthropologists to campus. He hopes Dr. Grisby’s lecture will inspire more students to consider fields in the social sciences, especially anthropology.

He said Dr. Grigsby can provide valuable insight for young scholars into the practical applications of anthropology today. “The work she is doing right now highlights the unique oppression of Black women and how that can be rendered invisible when things are seen as merely women’s issues, Black issues, or issues in our society at large. To this point, Dr. Grigsby’s latest work connects the structural and economic conditions faced by Black women with the very real violence that is enacted upon them, politically and physically,” he said.

He described Dr. Grigsby as a force for activating students around research and complicated situations that African American women face. He said she remains close to the issues that impact the community, while breaking from some long-standing traditions in the social sciences.

“It is imperative to have folks studying and advocating for our own communities, rather than folks from the outside telling us who we are and what is happening to us,” he said.