Chesler to Present the Goodstein Lecture

Ellen Chesler, senior fellow at the Roosevelt Institute, will present the 17th annual Anita S. Goodstein Lecture in Women’s History at 7 p.m., Wednesday, March 23, in Gailor Auditorium. Her talk, “Margaret Sanger, the Woman Rebel at 100,” will be followed by a reception. The public is invited.

Chesler joined the Roosevelt Institute as a senior fellow in 2010, following more than 30 years of experience in government, philanthropy and academia. Earlier this year, she and Columbia University professor Terry McGovern published “Women and Girls Rising: Progress and Resistance Around the World.” The book details the stories of people fighting for women’s rights around the world, including the history of the “Women’s Rights as Human Rights” movement. 

The Anita S. Goodstein Lectureship in Women’s History was created in 1998 in recognition of Goodstein’s significant contributions as a professor, colleague and friend. Goodstein began teaching history in the College in the mid-1960s and continued until her retirement in 1992, introducing courses such as American Intellectual and Social History, and Women in American History. She made substantial contributions in documenting women’s history in Tennessee and was a leading organizer of Tennessee’s 75th celebration of women’s suffrage. 

Chesler was distinguished lecturer at Roosevelt House 2007–10, the public policy institute of Hunter College of the City University of New York. For the decade prior, she served as a senior fellow and program director at the Open Society Institute, where she developed the foundation’s global investments in reproductive health and women’s rights, and advised on a range of other program initiatives.

She is the author of “Woman of Valor: Margaret Sanger and the Birth Control Movement in America,” which was a finalist for PEN’s 1993 Martha Albrand award in nonfiction. She is also co-editor of “Where Human Rights Begin: Health, Sexuality and Women in the New Millennium” and has written numerous essays and articles for academic anthologies and for newspapers, journals and periodicals. She is a member and former chair of the Advisory Committee of the Women’s Rights Division of Human Rights Watch, and formerly chaired the board of the International Women’s Health Coalition. An honors graduate of Vassar College, Chesler earned master’s and doctoral degrees in history at Columbia University.