Alice Echols
# Alice Echols

Alice Echols is Professor of History, and the Barbra Streisand Chair of Contemporary Gender Studies at the University of Southern California.

## Education

Echols received her bachelor's degree from Macalester College, Minnesota in 1973. She obtained her master's degree and Doctorate at the University of Michigan in 1980 and 1986 respectively.

## Career

While in graduate school at the University of Michigan, Echols visited the Rubaiyat, a since-closed predominantly gay bar where the "music just stunk." After persuasion from friends, she got a trial gig and then was hired, beginning her career as a Disco DJ.

She was a visiting associate professor at Rutgers University starting in spring 2007.

Echols began her career as The Barbra Streisand Professor in Contemporary Gender Studies and Professor of English and History at the University of Southern California on August 15, 2011.

## Honors and awards

| Honor or Award | Date |
| - | - |
| Rackham Dissertation Grant, The University of Michigan | 1984 |
| Center for Gender Research Fellowship | 1985 |
| University Fellowship, The University of Michigan | 1986 |
| The Horace H. Rackham Distinguished Dissertation Award, The University of Michigan | 1987 |
| ACLS Grant-in-Aid Fellowship | 1990 |
| Gustavus Meyers Outstanding Book Award-Daring to Be Bad | 1990-1991 |
| General Education Course Innovation Award | 2006-2007 |
| USC Endowed Professorship, Barbra Streisand Professor of Contemporary Gender Studies and Professor of English, Gender Studies and History | 2011-2016 |
| USC Endowed Professorship, Barbra Streisand Professor of Contemporary Gender Studies | 2016- |
| Source: ||

## Publications

She authored Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (with foreword by Ellen Willis); Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin; Shaky Ground: The Sixties and Its Aftershocks; and Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture. Her book Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American Banking was published by The New Press on October 3, 2017.

She also wrote a chapter on the Women's Liberation Movement in William McConnell's book The Counterculture Movement of the 1960s.

Echols was also interviewed in the 2012 documentary, The Secret Disco Revolution, where she emphasized the political nature of disco and its role in Black, queer, and women's liberation.

## Selected bibliography

* Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (with foreword by Ellen Willis)
* Shaky Ground: The Sixties and its Aftershocks (2002)
* Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (1999)
* Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture (2009)
