Imani Perry, Harvard University professor, National Book Award winner and 2023 MacArthur Fellow, will headline Rice University’s Campbell Lecture Series Nov. 15-16, sponsored by the School of Humanities.
This year’s program will feature two lectures by Perry: “For Oneself and One’s Own: Law, Citizenship and African American History” on Nov. 15 and “On Trial: The Tradition of Black Testimony and Witness” on Nov. 16.
“Imani Perry is a scholar of the highest accomplishment whose work has earned her a place among the most visible and influential public intellectuals,” said Kathleen Canning, dean of the School of Humanities and the Andrew W. Mellon Professor of History. “Her most recent book, ‘South to America,’ won the National Book Award in 2022 and spent weeks on the New York Times’ bestseller list, but it is also read and discussed in classrooms across the country. Her writing is compelling and evocative and invites the kind of engagement we look forward to during the Campbell lectures.”
The lectures are free and open to the public and will begin at 6 p.m. each night in Hudspeth Auditorium, located at the Susanne M. Glasscock School of Continuing Studies’ Anderson-Clarke Center on the west side of Rice’s campus at Entrance 8 at Stockton and University Boulevard. Registration is required. Each lecture will be approximately 45 minutes and will be followed by a Q&A session with the audience.
The Campbell Lecture Series was made possible by the Campbell family to further the study of key issues in the humanities, including literature and the arts, with a 20-year annual series of public lectures. A list of previous Campbell lecturers is online at campbell.rice.edu.
Imani Perry biography
Imani Perry is a Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at Harvard Radcliffe Institute and the Henry A. Morss, Jr. and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies at Harvard University.
Her writing and scholarship primarily focus on the history of Black thought, art and imagination crafted in response to and in resistance against the social, political and legal realities of domination in the West. Her most recent book, “South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation” (Ecco, 2022), won the 2022 National Book Award for nonfiction and was a New York Times bestseller. Perry’s other award-winning books include “Breathe: A Letter to My Sons” (Beacon Press, 2019); “Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry” (Beacon Press, 2018); and “May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem” (University of North Carolina Press, 2018).
Perry served most recently as the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies and a faculty associate with the programs in Law and Public Affairs, Gender and Sexuality Studies and Jazz Studies at Princeton University. She earned a bachelor’s degree from Yale College in literature and American studies, a Ph.D. in American studies and J.D. from Harvard and an LL.M. from Georgetown University Law Center.
RSVPs
Seating for the lectures is limited, and a Zoom option is also available for both dates. Each lecture requires a separate RSVP. For more information or to RSVP, visit the Campbell Lecture Series website at campbell.rice.edu or e-mail campbell@rice.edu.