Music meets politics on Thursday as Fresno State invites legendary rock icon Krist Novoselic to speak at Henry Madden Library’s endowed Womack Lecture Series.

His topic, “Blue for a 21st Century Democracy” will take place in the Sattelite Student Union at 7 p.m. following a reception at 6:30 p.m. The program is free to attend.

Following the untimely collapse of the ground-breaking grunge band Nirvana in 1994, the former bassist has been a crusader for a number of social and political movements. Most recently, he joined with Fairvote, an organization that seeks to change the current U.S. election system to one that allows a more universal participation.

Novoselic is also the author of “Of Grunge and Government: Let’s Fix this Broken Democracy” published in October 2004. In the book, Novoselic recalls his short, but influential years with Nirvana and how stardom helped him realize that music can deliver positive messages to the masses.

Noveselic currently lives in Washington, where he hosts a bimonthly radio show on Coast Community Radio and writes a weekly column for the Seattle Weekly Web site.

The Printise J. Womack Lectures began more than 10 years ago after a request was made by Rhoda H. Womack in honor of her late husband a long-time employee of Fresno State’s library. This year will cover the area of progressive politics followed by the theme of librarianship next year. Subsequent years will alternate between the two.

“We have done a March program and the future of the book in the digital age,” said Peter McDonald, dean of library services and coordinator of the event. “Next spring we’ll do another colloquium under the Womack lecture series on publishing for faculty.”