UT Austin’s Young to present on “DREAMers”
Dr. Michael Young will identify the “DREAMers” and the movement they shaped at a public lecture set for Feb. 24 at Bridges Auditorium at UWA.
The University of West Alabama will host Dr. Michael P. Young on February 24 for a public lecture entitled “The Making of the DREAMers.” The presentation will begin at 6:30 p.m. in Bridges Auditorium of Wallace Hall on the UWA campus.
Young is a professor of sociology at University of Texas at Austin. He’s been on the UT Austin faculty for 20 years and has received the President’s Associates Teaching Excellence Award there. He also earned a Humanities Institute Fellowship and College Research Fellowship at UT Austin.
DREAMers is the term used to describe undocumented immigrants brought to the U.S. as children with a collective identity forged by legislation known as The DREAM Act.
“DREAMers coalesced as political force altering the trajectory of American immigration politics,” Young suggests. “I will provide a short history of the DREAMers and the movement they shaped. I will offer some reflections on the dynamics of social movement, the formation of collective identities, and the radicalization of activism.”
Young holds a doctorate in sociology from New York University and a 1989 bachelor of arts in philosophy from Columbia University. His fields of interest include social movements, sociology of religion, historical sociology, and sociological theory. He speaks at conferences and events throughout the U.S. and has presented in China, Sweden, and Germany.
Young’s research and publications have garnered recognition and awards from not only UT Austin but also the Society for the Scientific Study of Religion, the American Sociological Association, New York University, and other notable organizations.
He is the author of “Bearing Witness Against Sin: The Evangelical Birth of the American Social Movement” (University of Chicago Press, 2007), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. His latest book, “To Pimp the DREAMer: How the Undocumented Youth Radicalized the Immigrant Rights Movement” is forthcoming.
Young’s presentation is sponsored by UWA’s Department of Behavioral Sciences in the College of Liberal Arts in collaboration with the Institute for Humane Studies at George Mason University, coordinated by Assistant Professor of Behavioral Sciences Dr. Adrian Popan.
For more information on Young’s visit, contact UWA’s Dr. Adrian Popan at 205-652-3499 or apopan@uwa.edu.