Christopher Emdin is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University.

The Office of Intercultural Education at Bates offers four autumn presentations exploring topics relating to the LGBT, African American and Latino/a experiences:

Pat Griffin, internationally known for her groundbreaking work on lesbians and sport, offers the talk “Gender Identity and Sexual Orientation in College Athletics” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 11, in the Edmund S. Muskie Archives, 70 Campus Ave.

Ken Morris, president of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, gives a talk called “History, Human Rights and the Power of One” at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 24, in the Muskie Archives.

Trans-masculine artists Rocco Katastrophe and Athens Boys Choir present F To eMbody: A Reconstruction of Gender, a gender-deviant, multi-media, spoken word, homo-hop extravaganza at 8 p.m. Monday, Oct. 29, in Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College St.

Finally, Christopher Emdin, a science and math teacher who researches the value of hip hop culture as a tool for engagement, offers the lecture African American and Latino Youth in Urban Education: We Ain’t All the Same at 7 p.m. Monday, Nov. 5, in the Benjamin E. Mays Center, 95 Russell St.

All four events are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8303.

Pat Griffin is internationally known for her groundbreaking work on lesbians and sport.

Griffin is the founding director of “Changing the Game,” an education and advocacy initiative focused on addressing LGBT issues in K-12 school-based athletic and physical education programs. She is the author of Strong Women, Deep Closets: Lesbian and Homophobia in Sports (Human Kinetics, 1998) and is co-editor of Teaching For Diversity and Social Justice: A Sourcebook for Teachers and Trainers (Routledge, 2007).

She publishes Pat Griffin’s LGBT Sports Blog and serves as a consultant to sports teams and college campuses. An award-winning athlete and coach, she is professor emerita in the Social Justice Education Program at the University of Massachusetts Amherst.

Her talk at Bates is co-sponsored by Bates Athletics, the Office of the Special Assistant to the President and the student organization OUTfront.

Hip hop artist Rocco “Katastrophe” Kayiatos and spoken word poet Harvey Katz, a.k.a. Athens Boys Choir, present performances that aim to both entertain and to offer insights into the transgender experience.

Yale Daily News reporter Yvette Borja wrote that “Katz’s art is unabashedly personal, subversive without being caustic.” He uses video and pop culture spoofs to shed light on his own experiences.

Rocco Katastrophe. at left, and Harvey Katz present “F to eMbody.”

“Kayiatos rapped about his difficulty fitting in during high school and the bouts of depression that he experienced periodically throughout his life,” Borja wrote. “Nonetheless, he kept it light by introducing his songs with the anecdotes that often served as the inspiration behind his work.

“Like Katz, his presentation was a balancing act: art that makes us laugh while simultaneously showing the darkness underneath.”

Co-sponsoring their performance are the women and gender studies program, OUTfront, the Office of the Special Assistant to the President, the Bates Learning Commons, and the departments of arts and visual culture and of music.

Morris is descended from two of the most important names in American history: He is the great-great-great grandson of Frederick Douglass, a renowned African American orator and abolitionist leader; and the great-great grandson of Booker T. Washington, an African American leader who was an educator, author, orator and presidential adviser.

Ken Morris is president of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation.

Morris is president of the Frederick Douglass Family Foundation, a public charity that endeavors to create a modern abolitionist movement in schools all over the country through the vehicle of service-learning. He is driven to use the platform that his illustrious ancestors built, through struggle and through sacrifice, to fight to end the scourge of modern-day slavery.

His visit is co-sponsored by the Multifaith Chaplaincy at Bates.

Emdin’s award-winning research focuses on using hip hop as tool for transforming schools, fostering student engagement and participation in school, and supporting African American and Latino youth in K-12 and higher education.

He is an assistant professor in the Department of Mathematics, Science and Technology at Teachers College, Columbia University, where he also serves as director of secondary school initiatives at the Urban Science Education Center. He is the author of “Urban Science Education for the Hip-Hop Generation” (Sense Publishers, 2010) and is a columnist for the Huffington Post.

His talk is co-sponsored by the Office of the Special Assistant to the President, the departments of education, geology, math, and physics and astronomy, and the Medical Studies Program.

Susanne Salkind '90, managing director of the Human Rights Campaign.

A drag show featuring an acclaimed singer-songwriter, a discussion about LGBT activism including the head of a national civil rights campaign and a film about homophobia in athletics are among public offerings during Pride Week at Bates taking place May 4-10.

The student group OUTfront hosts the second annual festival. Events are open to the public at no cost. For more information, please contact Jarron Brady, OUTfront coordinator, at jbrady@bates.edu.

“Through these events, OUTfront hopes to bring awareness to the Bates campus and increase the recognition of LGBT voices at the school,” says Brady, a first-year student from St. Louis.

“We welcome the participation of LGBT organizations and persons from the local community, and we strongly encourage residents of Lewiston-Auburn to attend.”

Among performers in the May 5 drag show is acoustic singer-songwriter DavEnd, a Maine native and San Francisco resident described as a “tender-hearted, genderqueer, costume-designing, accordion-wielding songwriter, performing artist and designer.”

Related story: Bates has been named a top LGBT-friendly collegiate athletic program by Campus Pride.

Acclaimed performer DavEnd is featured in a drag show and a drag "werkshop" at Bates.

DavEnd has released two studio albums (How To Hold Your Own Hand and Fruits Commonly Mistaken For Vegetables, both on Olive Juice Music) and for the past five years has toured extensively in the U.S., performing at queer teen centers, festivals, colleges, theaters and back yards.

Between tours, DavEnd designs costumes, and most recently has been producing a new musical, designing costumes and dancing in production numbers for songwriter Kimya Dawson and appearing in Taylor Mac’s epic five-hour play, The Lily’s Revenge.

DavEnd’s current project, Fabulous Artistic Guys Get Overtly Traumatized Sometimes: The Musical!, brings together the worlds of music and radical performance art in a theatrical extravaganza, exploring the effects of heterosexism and street harassment on the development of queer identity.

Here’s the schedule of public events for Pride Week at Bates:

• 4 p.m. Friday, May 4: Drag Werkshop with DavEnd. This werkshop will include a history/gender heroes discussion, hands-on make-up tips for any sort of drag transformation, basic costume design tips, safety tips, theory, etc. DavEnd’s approach to drag focuses on body/gender/identity positivity and transformation more than a conventional “impersonation” drag model. Room G21, Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).
• 7 p.m. Saturday, May 5: “Lewistunning Dragapalooza,” drag show with student and professional performers including DavEnd. Schaeffer Theatre, 305 College Ave. $10.
• 1 p.m. Sunday, May 6: The panel discussion “Bobcats on the Front Lines: The World of Professional LGBT Activism.” Room 221-222, New Commons Building, 136 Central Ave. Panelists:  Susanne Salkind ’90, managing director for the Washington, D.C.-based Human Rights Campaign, the largest civil rights organization working to achieve equality for LGBT Americans; Ali Vander Zanden ’06, political director for EqualityMaine; Stephen Engel, assistant professor of politics at Bates; and moderator Heather Lindkvist, special assistant to the president of Bates for diversity and inclusion.
• 5 p.m. Tuesday, May 8: “Does HIV Look Like Me?” by Todd Murray, president and founder of Hope’s Voice, an advocacy organization for people with HIV and AIDS. Murray will address the stigma of HIV, share his story of being diagnosed and answer questions. Benjamin Mays Center, 95 Russell St.
• 7:30 p.m. Thursday, May 10: Training Rules, a 2009 documentary that uses the case of former Pennsylvania State University women’s basketball coach Rene Portland to examine homophobia in women’s sports. A panel discussion follows the hourlong film. Keck Classroom (G52), Pettengill Hall, 4 Andrews Road (Alumni Walk).

Emanuel Xavier, an award-winning Latino poet, spoken word artist, author and activist, speaks at Bates College in observance of National Coming Out Day at 4:30 p.m., Thursday, Oct. 8, in Chase Hall Lounge, 56 Campus Ave.

Xavier’s talk also marks the 40th anniversary of the Stonewall riots in New York City, demonstrations considered the first instance of gay protest against government persecution of sexual minorities. Presented by the Bates Multicultural Center, he will discuss the importance of the riots as they relate to the modern civil rights movement for the LGBT community.

The lecture is open to the public at no cost. For more information, please call 207-786-8376.

Born and raised in Brooklyn, of Puerto Rican and Ecuadorian descent, Xavier is prominent in the world of spoken-word poetry. He performs regularly throughout the United States and internationally, sharing his sexually, politically, culturally and often religiously themed poetics.

He is author of the poetry collections Pier Queen (Pier Queen Productions, 1997) and Americano (Suspect Thoughts Press, 2002); and the Lambda Literary Award-nominated novel Christ Like (Queer Mojo, 10th anniversary edition, 2009). His work has been commissioned for the Walt Whitman Archives, UNESCO and the Harvard Gay & Lesbian Review.

Xavier has received a number of awards, including the Marsha A. Gomez Cultural Heritage Award, a New York City Council Citation and a World Pride Award. He was recently named one of the “25 Most Influential GLBT Latinos” and is currently working on a new poetry collection and a spoken-word/music collaboration with producer El David.

National Coming Out Day is observed every Oct. 11.