Suzanne Kurth is a professor of sociology at the University of Tennessee in Knoxville. Dr. Kurth was interviewed about her experiences as a professor and feminist at the University since the 1970s. Topics discussed in this interview include: gendered differences in treatment of faculty members in the 1970s; the women’s movement in Knoxville, Tenn. and on campus in the 1970s; the formation of a women’s studies program and women’s athletics at the university (the Lady Volunteers’ history); reflections on various social groups and women’s spaces, such as Mountain Women’s Exchange, the Knoxville Women’s Center; the Equal Rights Act struggle; her definition of feminism and conceptualization of social movements in America; critique of the “wave” analogy; sexual harassment and the Affirmative Employment Program. This interview is part of the Southern Oral History Program’s project to document the women’s movement in the American South.
Interview with Suzanne Kurth by Joey Fink, May 11 2011 U-0526, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.