African-American Identity Through a Pragmatic Lens

African-American Identity through a Pragmatic Lens
Wednesday, February 3, 2010 Barrows Auditorium, 7:00 PM

Featuring Dr. Eddie Glaude, Jr. William S. Tod Professor of Religion and African American Studies, and Director, Center for African American Studies, Princeton University.

Dr. Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. is the Director of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton University. He is also a senior fellow at The Jamestown Project. Prior to his appointment at Princeton, he taught at Bowdoin College and Amherst College in African American Studies and Religion. He received his B.A. from Morehouse College, his M.A. and Ph.D. from Princeton University. According to Michael Dyson, writing in The Chicago Sun-Times, “Glaude is one of the most gifted young scholars in black religion today. He is a charismatic thinker and insightful writer who is breaking new ground by imaginatively treating primary sources in his scholarly ventures. Glaude's star will only get brighter….”

Glaude is the author of Exodus! Religion, Race, and Nation in Early 19th Century Black America, recipient of the Modern Language Association’s William Sanders Scarborough Book Prize for outstanding scholarly study of black cultural life and/or literature.

Professor Glaude is also editor of Is it Nation Time? Contemporary Essays on Black Power and Black Nationalism. This edited collection has been described as “a standard reference for students and scholars of African American intellectual history.” He has also co-edited, with Cornel West, African American Religious Thought: An Anthology. This text is widely viewed as one of the most important books published in African American religion in the last five years. Professor Glaude’s public speeches are known throughout the country as not only intellectually challenging but filled with conviction and inspiration, urging his listeners to speak out against social injustice and to imagine a better world for us and our children.

Dr. Glaude's newest book, In a Shade of Blue. In a Shade of Blue makes an impassioned plea for black America to address its social problems by recourse to experience and with an eye set on the promise and potential of the future, rather than the fixed ideas and categories of the past.