Department and Program Affiliations:
Africana Studies & Research Center

Academic focus:  
African American history

Current research project: 
St. Clair Drake and the intellectual history of Africana Studies

Previous positions: 
Robert Hayden Collegiate Professor of History and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, 2010-2015
Director, Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, 2005-2010
Professor of History and Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, 2005- 2010
Associate professor, Department of History and The Center for Afroamerican and African Studies, University of Michigan, 1999- 2005
Associate professor, Department of History, University of Texas,   Austin, 1996-1999
Assistant professor, Departments of History and African American Studies, Princeton University, 1991-1996

Academic background: 
Ph.D., American Civilization, Brown University, 1991
M.A., Government, Brown University, 1987
B.A., American studies, Harvard University, 1982

Last book read:    
"Dreaming Blackness: Black Nationalism and African-American Public Opinion" by Melanye Price

In your own time/when not working:  
Listening to/playing music

Courses you’re most looking forward to teaching:   
Post-Reconstruction African American intellectual and social thought; the intersection of African American literature and social science; the Music of the Civil Rights/Black Power era

What most excites you about Cornell:   
Teaching graduate students; the vibrant intellectual community in my fields of interest.