3rd Annual Martin Wachs Distinguished Lecture in Transportation

"Gender and Mobility: A Feminist Geographer’s Perspective" October 17, 2008 Wurster Hall Auditorim
University of California, Berkeley

Presented by Professor Susan Hanson
Research Professor of Geography, Clark University

The 2008 Martin Wachs Lecture was part of the events celebrating the 60th anniversary of planning studies at Berkeley, hosted by the Department of City and Regional Planning.

Before earning her Ph.D. from Northwestern University (1973), Susan Hanson was a Peace Corps Volunteer in Kenya (1964-66). She is an urban geographer with interests in gender and economy, transportation, local labor markets, and sustainability. Hanson has been an editor of four geography journals – Urban Geography, Economic Geography, the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, and The Professional Geographer. She has authored or edited five books, including The Geography of Urban Transportation (2004, with Genevieve Giuliano), Geography, Gender, and the Workaday (2003), Ten Geographic Ideas that Changed the World (1997), The Geography of Urban Transportation (1995), and Gender, Work, and Space (1995, with Geraldine Pratt).

Hanson has served as Director of Clark’s School of Geography and as President of the Association of American Geographers (AAG). She has received numerous awards, including Lifetime Achievement Honors from the AAG, the Van Cleef Medal from the American Geographical Society for innovative work in urban geography, and the Guggenheim Fellowship. In 2000, she was elected to the National Academy of Sciences as well as the American Academy of Arts and Sciences.

Hanson’s talk, “Gender and Mobility: A Feminist Geographer's Perspective,” reflects the wisdom gained over a distinguished career. She reviews the state of knowledge and practice with regard to gender and mobility, and identifies intriguing and critical gaps in this knowledge base. A sub-theme will be grappling with a core issue in both feminist and place-based research and the policy implications of such work, namely, the tension between the general and the specific. As geographers and planners, we know that "context matters" (neighborhood/city/region), yet we also want to claim that our findings have relevance beyond a particular time and place. Her talk addresses the following questions: What have we learned about gender and mobility and what significance do these understandings hold for urban scholars and practitioners? How can those evaluating urban problems constructively engage with the tension between the general and the specific? And what are the policy implications of this tension?

Read story in NewsBITS, the ITS Berkeley newsletter.

Giving to the Lectureship:
To establish and sustain an annual lectureship reflecting the caliber of Professor Wachs' contribution to transportation, we invite you to support this fundraising initiative. Founding donations from individual and corporate sponsors are encouraged. We encourage individual donors to contribute generously and to use a multi-year pledge to maximize the impact of your contribution.

Download a mail-in pledge form HERE.

Make checks payable to: "UCTC - Martin Wachs Lecture Fund"
Mail donations to: University of California Transportation Center
Martin Wachs Lecture Fund
2614 Dwight Way
University of California, Berkeley, CA 94720-1782