Author and feminist leader Rebecca Walker, daughter of “The Color Purple” author Alice Walker, will serve as ’DEIS Impact’s 2017 keynote speaker on Jan. 31.

“Through her coming of age as a biracial Jewish woman and embracing the power of renaming herself,” reads the ’DEIS Impact event booklet, “Walker speaks to the intersections of race, gender, class and religion that shape today’s conversations about power, privilege and identity.”

Co-founder of the Third Wave Foundation, Walker has written several books, including her memoir, “Black, White & Jewish: Autobiography of a Shifting Self.” The overlap between different experiences and identities like Blackness, whiteness and Judaism is central to third-wave feminism. On her website, Walker describes this third wave as “comprising people of many gender, ethnic, and class identities, experiences, and interests,” all looking “to question, reclaim, and redefine the ideas, words, and media that have transmitted ideas about womanhood, gender, beauty, sexuality, femininity, and masculinity.”

Born from the efforts of the International Center for Ethics, Justice and Public Life and the Student Union, ’DEIS Impact has engaged the campus and surrounding communities in the pursuit of social justice since 2012. The event highlights the need not just for discussion and thought but also for action. Quoting Holocaust survivor Elie Wiesel, the event booklet notes that “neutrality helps the oppressor, never the victim.”

This year’s event will run from Jan. 26 to Feb. 5. Topics will include immigration, poverty, gender and sexuality. Additionally, on Feb. 2 and 3, ’DEIS Impact College will hold open sessions of courses whose topics of discussion relate to ’DEIS Impact’s overall social justice theme.

—Peri Meyers