LAS Professors Roderick Ferguson and Jane Rhodes Interviewed on FOX 32 News
Roderick Ferguson, professor of African American Studies and Gender and Women’s Studies, and Jane Rhodes, professor and head of the African American Studies Department, were recently interviewed on FOX 32’s 9 PM newscast on September 16, 2015. The segment and interview examined the recent AAS department-sponsored panel discussion of the FOX drama series “Empire” and its depiction of social matters such as media, race, sexuality, gender, and politics. The event, which featured Ferguson, Rhodes, and Barbara Ransby, UIC LAS Professor of African American Studies, History, and Gender and Women’s Studies, as panel guests, had taken place at UIC earlier that same day, and portions of it were featured in the broadcast.
“[‘Empire’] is authorizing issues that may be taboo, or may only take place within one family, to be discussed widely among black folks,” Ferguson said in the interview.