Dr. Kimberly Mack, an associate professor of English and scholar of African American literature and American popular music at The University of Toledo, is the first speaker in the Humanities in Public Speaker Series Wednesday, Oct. 19, at the Main Library in downtown Toledo.

Beginning at 6 p.m., the free, public lecture is hosted by the Roger Ray Institute for the Humanities in the UToledo College of Arts and Letters.

Mack’s lecture is titled “We, Too, Write Rock and Roll: African American Writers and Rock Music, 1970-1983.” Attendees will learn about the ways in which race and gender help determine how we define music genres, with an emphasis on rock music.

“Audience members will be introduced to two important Black rock critics who emerged in the 1970s: Cynthia Dagnal-Myron and Vernon Gibbs,” Mack said. “Vital rock writers (and musicians) have been dismissed or forgotten because of racialized or gendered assumptions about how a rock musician or writer should look.”

For more information about the event and the speaker series, visit the Roger Ray Institute for the Humanities website.