Eliza Gilkyson has built a reputation as one of the most original and influential folk artists of our time over the course of 13 albums (most recently, Beautiful World on Red House Records). Robert Jensen, whose book All My Bones Shake: Radical Politics in the Prophetic Voice is forthcoming on Soft Skull Press, is a professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has written extensively about foreign policy and U.S. power, as well as race and gender. After a successful series of community events in Austin to raise these crucial issues, the two are performing and speaking in a few cities this year.

Co-sponsored by Women Against War and supported by the New York State Council on the Arts.

Press Release

Eliza Gilkyson is a third-generation musician whose sociopolitical album “Land of Milk and Honey” was nominated for a Grammy Award in 2004. Daughter of successful songwriter Terry Gilkyson, Eliza recently appeared on National Public Radio, Austin City Limits, and Air America Radio, and has recorded with folk greats such as Patty Griffin, Mary Chapin Carpenter, and Iris DeMent. Eliza was inducted into the Austin Music Hall of Fame, placing her next to Willie Nelson, Townes Van Zandt, Nanci Griffith, and many others. Recently, she was awarded three Austin Music Awards and four Folk Alliance Music Awards.

Gilkyson’s new CD “Beautiful World” has received rave reviews (“lush and passionate…edgy lyrics with piercing imagery,” according to the NY Times). The first studio album since her award-winning 2005 release “Paradise Hotel,” it is a radio-friendly collection of songs, celebrating the beauty that shines amidst these dark days of war and corruption.

Over the course of 13 albums, Eliza Gilkyson has built a reputation as one of the most original and influential folk artists of our time. Robert Jensen is an activist and professor of journalism at the University of Texas at Austin who has written extensively about foreign policy and U.S. power, as well as race and gender. In their most recent work, both are confronting difficult questions about justice and sustainability. After a successful series of community events in Austin to raise these crucial issues, the two are performing and speaking in a few cities this year–including Troy, NY!

The seeds for “Beautiful World” sprang from a monthly gathering that Eliza and Robert hosted in 2007 with Presbyterian minister Jim Rigby called “Last Sunday.” Held at various venues around Austin, these community forums covered a broad range of topics, including politics, art, spirituality and the environment.

“We wanted to provide a place to discuss, grieve and mull over our future without having a need for an immediate solution other than the comfort of each other’s presence,” Eliza says. “The first song I wrote for it was ‘Great Correction,’ which I wrote as a way to console myself as I grieve the devastation of the human and natural world.”

This anthemic song spurred a whole cycle of tunes about perseverance and hope for a more beautiful world.

Robert Jensen’s forthcoming book is “All My Bones Shake: Radical Politics in the Prophetic Voice.” He is an associate professor in the School of Journalism and director of the Senior Fellows Honors Program of the College of Communication at the University of Texas at Austin. Jensen joined the UT faculty in 1992 after completing his Ph.D. in media ethics and law in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication at the University of Minnesota. Prior to his academic career, he worked as a professional journalist for a decade.

At UT, Jensen teaches courses in media law, ethics, and politics. In his research, Jensen draws on a variety of critical approaches to media and power. Much of his work has focused on pornography and the radical feminist critique of sexuality and men’s violence, and he also has addressed questions of race through a critique of white privilege and institutionalized racism. In addition to teaching and research, Jensen writes for popular media, both alternative and mainstream. His opinion and analytic pieces on such subjects as foreign policy, politics, and race have appeared in papers around the country.

Jensen’s latest book, “All My Bones Shake: Radical Politics in the Prophetic Voice,” will be published in 2009 by Soft Skull Press.

He also is the author of “Getting Off: Pornography and the End of Masculinity” (South End Press, 2007); “The Heart of Whiteness: Confronting Race, Racism and White Privilege” (City Lights, 2005); “Citizens of the Empire: The Struggle to Claim Our Humanity” (City Lights, 2004); and “Writing Dissent: Taking Radical Ideas from the Margins to the Mainstream” (Peter Lang, 2001); co-author with Gail Dines and Ann Russo of “Pornography: The Production and Consumption of Inequality” (Routledge, 1998); and co-editor with David S. Allen of “Freeing the First Amendment: Critical Perspectives on Freedom of Expression” (New York University Press, 1995).

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