Princeton professor delivers a lecture today on 'Memory and Civil Rights'

By Franklin Crawford

Valerie Smith, director of the Program in African American Studies at Princeton University, will deliver a free public talk titled "Memory and Civil Rights," today, Oct. 9, at 4:30 p.m. in Room 258 of Goldwin Smith Hall on campus.

Smith, the Woodrow Wilson Professor of Literature at Princeton, specializes in African-American literature and culture, with specific interests in black feminist theory and film studies. She is the author of Self-Discovery and Authority in Afro-American Narrative (1987) and Not Just Race, Not Just Gender: Black Feminist Readings (1998) and the editor of African American Writers (1991), New Essays on Song of Solomon (1994) and Representing Blackness: Issues in Film and Video (1997). Her work has appeared in numerous journals and anthologies, and she is writing a book on narratives of race in the "post-Civil Rights" era.

"Valerie Smith is an immensely engaging lecturer who draws on multiple media, particularly film, to explore significant cultural questions," said Mary Pat Brady, assistant professor of English and director of the Latino Studies Program at Cornell. "Her work is widely respected by scholars in a variety of disciplines, from political science to religious studies, to ethics, law, literature, sociology, feminist and gender studies."

Brady said that because the Civil Rights Movement continues to have such a profound impact on contemporary life, Smith's analysis of how it is being remembered and studied is of particular significance.

"Her work on gender, race and memory will be of interest to anyone curious about the way societies understand themselves," Brady said.

Smith's lecture is part of the Studies in Critical Race Theory project, coordinated by the Cornell Department of English. For more information about the series or on Smith's visit, contact Brady at 255-7566 or mpb23@cornell.edu.