Andi Zeisler, co-founder of Bitch Media, will be visiting the OSU campus Thursday evening. The event is scheduled from 4-5:30 p.m. in the Bexell Hall Living Room.

Her talk is part of the Social Justice Works series, a professional development series aimed at helping students better understand and connect with career opportunities centered on social justice and activism. This particular event is a collaboration between the School of Language, Culture and Society, the School of Writing, Literature and Film and the CO.

Liddy Detar, PhD, was an important part of organizing Andi’s visit. Detar hopes this event will help students interested in social justice work see that there are ways to integrate that passion into their careers.

“Students ask me frequently, ‘What can I do with this degree?’” Detar said in an email. “I would say to them that they can do anything they want. But I found myself thinking about this

question and my answer in between these conversations, and I wanted to have a

stronger answer that spoke to our students’ concerns for their futures and also really

affirmed their energy to create social change.”

For Zeisler, this talk is one of many that she and her colleagues do as part of a Bitch Media program called Bitch on Campus wherein speakers from Bitch Media visit college campuses, libraries and other communities to discuss their work. According to Zeisler, the Bitch on Campus program was started in response to numerous requests from educators to utilize Bitch Media materials in their classrooms. Bitch on Campus, then, allows for even greater learning and engagement.

“One of [the goals of the Bitch on Campus program] is to sort of demystify the idea of feminist activism as something… the idea that activism is a thing that you have to devote your life to and not something that you can just sort of do daily through different channels,” Zeisler said.  

Zeisler also hopes that students at the event will learn more about the continued need for feminist activism, the potential manifestations of this activism in media and perhaps some career advice for students who are inspired by her and her colleagues’ work.

“I hope that I’m able to talk about my experience doing this work in a way that feels relevant to students who are sort of coming of age and figuring out what they want to do in a really complicated time,” Zeisler said.