The theme of going beyond any self-limitations was prevalent throughout Bebe Barefoot’s  lecture delivered in Lloyd Hall on Monday night. Barefoot, a New College professor, was the chosen winner of the Last Lecture series. In the series, the Student Selection committee chooses a professor to give a speech as if it was the last time he or she would ever give a lecture to University of Alabama students.

Barefoot’s lecture, entitled “Stepping Outside Self-Evident Limitedness” or, in other words, “How to Get Over Yourself And Join The Circus,” addressed the importance of moving outside the self-imposed boundaries that humans naturally create for themselves.

“Sometimes we step outside the parrotry of ourselves and its limitedness because we want to see what’s on the other side,” Barefoot said. “And sometimes we do it not because we want to see what’s on the other side, but because our limitedness can no longer contain us.”

Barefoot went on to say that while humans may think that they’ve gone beyond their limitedness, they’ve actually created another box. At that point, Barefoot said, a wake-up call abruptly “hits us on the head,” causing us to reevaluate our lives.

“Sometimes (the wake-up call) is a polite little tap,” Barefoot said, “And sometimes it’s a sledgehammer.”

Barefoot’s own wake-up call aired on the side of the latter eight years ago.

“I was driving back from visiting my family, chucking along Highway 231 in my little yellow Beetle, listening to Jerry Lee Lewis, and ‘BAM’,” Barefoot said. “I was struck by lightning.”

The last thought Barefoot had after actually being struck by lightning wasn’t the “last lecture” she wanted herself to have.

“I thought I was dying, and all I could think of was my dissertation,” said Barefoot, saying that this hit her hard.

After this incident, Barefoot said she did things that she had always sworn to herself she’d never do; She “joined the circus.” She started to read mythology again, bought a convertible, started reading southern writers, bought a sewing machine and got married. Each of the acts she engaged in were ones she said she had resisted for a long time.

“When Zeus reaches down and gives you a twirl, you pretty much stop caring what other people think,” Barefoot said.

Barefoot, who grew up in a small town in Alabama, says that her wake-up call caused her to look to her past that she had not faced for two decades. She also found a husband, who loved both the person she had become and the person she had been.

Barefoot also created a course called “Witches and B*i&#!s,” which focuses on women’s empowerment. Two of her students from the course were present at the Last Lecture: Kaylan Gee, a junior majoring in microbiology and Spanish, and Lucie Enns, a junior majoring in political science.

“It was nice to see how much that course was a part of her self-evident limitedness,” Gee said, saying that Barefoot’s messages were inspirational.

“I want to join her circus,” said Enns, expressing her enjoyment of Barefoot’s lecture.

However, Barefoot not only delivered the Last Lecture on Monday; she also named the two women who she would most want to give the Last Lecture. These women were Elizabeth Meese and Ute Winston. Both women worked as University of Alabama professors, were responsible for establishing the women’s studies program at the University, and, to Barefoot, gave a profound “last lecture” before they died.

Barefoot names a disco ball as Meese’s “last lecture” to her because Meese had been trying to sell her one at their last meeting.

“A disco ball is a chandelier who stepped outside its self-evident limitedness, got over itself, and joined the circus,” said Barefoot, who went on to say that disco balls make their own light and reflect light from others, making people want to dance.

Barefoot also recalls the “last lecture” Winston gave to her at their last meeting together. She said that their conversation during their time together didn’t matter; for Winston’s “last lecture” occurred at the end of the night, as Winston was waving goodbye to her as she drove away into the night.

“She couldn’t have possibly known that I could still see her,” Barefoot said. “But she just stood there and kept waving and smiling.

“That was my last image of her; that was her last lecture to me.”

At the end of her own lecture, Barefoot stood in the middle and said, “And now I’m going to leave you with Ute’s gift.”

And Barefoot smiled and waved.