Three prominent writers will visit Wayne State on Wednesday, Oct. 27, for the1999 Graduate Council Colloquium. The event begins at 7:30 p.m. in Community Arts Auditorium.

Judith Butler, Ellen Schrecker and Roger Wilkins will offer their perspectives on this year's theme, "Freedom of Expression." President Irvin D. Reid is expected to give opening remarks.

Butler is a leading feminist theoretician whose work re-evaluates the social relationships involving sex and gender. Her presentation, "The Value of Being Disturbed," will examine literature and visual art that are deliberately provocative.

Butler is the author of Excitable Speech: A Politics of the Performative; Subjection, Bodies that Matter: On the Discursive Limits of "Sex"; and Gender Trouble: Feminism and Identity, which has become a standard text in gender studies classes. Currently professor of rhetoric and comparative literature at the University of California, Berkeley, she holds a doctoral degree in philosophy from Yale University.

Schrecker, professor of history at Yeshiva University, will discuss "Freedom of Expression in the Academy: McCarthy Era to Today." She currently is editor of Academe, the official publication of the American Association of University Professors (AAUP).

Her critically acclaimed books include Many Are the Crimes: McCarthyism in America; The Age of McCarthyism: A Brief History; and No Ivory Tower: McCarthyism and the Universities. A frequent contributor to academic journals and the New York Review of Books, Schrecker holds a doctoral degree in history from Harvard University.

Wilkins is professor of history and American culture at George Mason University. He has broad experience in public service and a distinguished journalistic career.

He served with the U.S. departments of Justice and Commerce and the Ford Foundation; he has been on the editorial boards of the Washington Post, the New York Times and The Nation. While at the Post, Wilkins was cited by the Pulitzer Prize committee for editorial writing on the Watergate scandal.

Wilkins' highly acclaimed autobiography, A Man's Life, describes his struggle to learn what it means to be black and middle class. His articles and reviews appear in dozens of periodicals and magazines. Wilkins holds a law degree from the University of Michigan.

In addition to appearing at the Graduate Council Colloquium, each presenter also will give a free daytime lecture for a more discipline-specific audience.

Butler will present "The Rhetoric of Politics and the Limits of Common Sense" at 11:30 a.m. Thursday, Oct. 28, in Alumni Lounge.

Schrecker will discuss "McCarthyism and Labor" at 5 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27, in the reading room of the Walter P. Reuther Library of Labor and Urban Affairs. This lecture is co-sponsored by the AAUP.

Wilkins will give the keynote address, titled "Reflections on Justice: Activism from Grand Rapids to Washington," at the Humanities Center's Fall Symposium at 11 a.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27, in Alumni Lounge.

The authors' visits are sponsored by the Graduate School. Co-sponsors include the other 13 WSU schools and colleges along with the departments of communication, English and history; the Graduate Student Council, University Libraries; and the Provost's and President's offices.

For more information call (313) 577-8050.