While in graduate school at the University of Michigan, Echols visited the Rubaiyat, a since-closed[4] 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.[5]
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.[2]
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
She authored Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (with foreword by Ellen Willis);[6] 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.[7] Her book Shortfall: Family Secrets, Financial Collapse, and a Hidden History of American Banking was published by The New Press on October 3, 2017.[8]
She also wrote a chapter on the Women's Liberation Movement in William McConnell's book The Counterculture Movement of the 1960s.[9]
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.[10]
Selected bibliography
Daring to Be Bad: Radical Feminism in America 1967-1975 (with foreword by Ellen Willis)[6]
Shaky Ground: The Sixties and its Aftershocks (2002)[2]
Scars of Sweet Paradise: The Life and Times of Janis Joplin (1999)[11]
Hot Stuff: Disco and the Remaking of American Culture (2009)[2]