Martha Biondi to deliver inaugural lecture for ‘Reflections on African American Studies’ series at Princeton University

** Professor Martha Biondi to deliver inaugural lecture for ‘Reflections on African American Studies’ lecture series at Princeton University **

Martha Biondi, an associate professor of African American studies and history at Northwestern University, will deliver a lecture titled “The Black Revolution on Campus” at 4:30 p.m. on Thursday, April 26 in McCormick Hall, Room 106 on the Princeton University campus. The event is free and open to the public.

[Media who would like to attend the lecture should RSVP to Jennifer Loessy at the Center for African American Studies no later than Wednesday, April 25 at 5 p.m. by emailing jloessy@princeton.edu or calling (609) 258-3216.]

Biondi will address topics from her forthcoming book “The Black Revolution on Campus” in which she describes an extraordinary but forgotten chapter of the black freedom struggle and examines the explosive emergence of black studies from 1967 to 1975, when direct action protest by African American students led to the creation of more than 250 African American studies programs, departments, and institutes. Vividly demonstrating the critical linkage between the student movement and changes in university culture, the book illustrates how victories in establishing black studies ultimately produced important intellectual innovations and had a lasting impact on academic research and university curricula over the past 40 years.

Biondi’s discussion inaugurates the Reflections on African American Studies lecture series at Princeton. This annual lecture offers an opportunity for the Princeton community to reflect on the current and future direction of the field of African American studies. Its aim is to bring scholars to campus who are thinking at the cutting edge of the discipline and who are taking up vexing questions about its past, current and future trajectories. The lecture exemplifies the role of the center as a model for African American studies for the 21st century.

Professor Martha Biondi

“Biondi is a wonderful inaugural speaker for our new lecture series,” said Professor Eddie Glaude, chair of the Center for African American Studies at Princeton. “The work Biondi has done is critical to advancing the dialogue surrounding the direction of African American studies programs and their importance in the modern context.” Biondi received her B.A. from Barnard College and her Ph.D. from Columbia University. Her research interests include 20th-century African American history with a focus on social movements. Biondi’s previous book “To Stand and Fight: The Struggle for Civil Rights in Postwar New York City” (Harvard University Press, 2003) demonstrates how black New Yorkers launched the modern civil rights a full 10 years before the rise of the Civil Rights Movement in the South. The book won the 2004 Myers Outstanding Book Award and the 2003 Thomas J. Wilson Prize.

The event is sponsored by the Center for African American Studies at Princeton. Launched in 2006, the center expands upon the initiatives begun by the Program in African American Studies. Since its founding in 1969, the program has offered an interdisciplinary certificate that has allowed students to draw on the insights and techniques of various disciplines in an effort to understand the experience, history and culture of African-descended people. The center builds upon that earlier vision and extends its reach broadly across the campus and throughout the curriculum.

Additional information about the Reflections on African American Studies lecture series and other events can be found on the Center for African American Studies website at: www.princeton.edu/caas/events/

Posted Mar 22, 2012By Jennifer Loessy, FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE Media contact: Jennifer Loessy, (609) 258-3216, jloessy@princeton.edu

IMAGE CREDIT: www.wcas.northwestern.edu