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. Echols has been a professor of history at the University of Southern California since 2004. Since 2011 she has been the Barbra Streisand Professor of Contemporary Gender Studies, an endowed professorship. Echols was a visiting associate professor at Rutgers University during the 2009–2010 academic year.

Honors and awards

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