West
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Princeton University’s Cornel West will lecture at 7 p.m. Thursday (Feb. 5) at the IU Auditorium in Bloomington. A reception will follow the lecture in the Neal-Marshall Black Culture Center, located nearby at 275 N. Jordan Ave.
West, formerly a faculty member at Harvard University, is the Class of 1943 University Professor of religion at Princeton and is well known for his writings, particularlyRace Matters (Beacon Press, 1993). He co-authored, with Harvard scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr., The African-American Century: How Black Americans Have Shaped Our Century, released in 2000 by Simon and Schuster.
West’s lecture is being presented by Union Board, the IUB Office of Multicultural Affairs and the IU Office of the Vice President for Institutional Development and Student Affairs.
West has been a visitor to IU campuses throughout the state this past decade, and was the catalyst for IU South Bend’s first "Conversations on Race" in 1997, an event that turned out to be the largest single attended event in IU South Bend history at that time. He was an IPFW Omnibus Lecturer in 2001 and participated in the IUPUI-based POLIS Center’s Spirit and Place Festival that same year.
West’s writings and lectures weave together the American traditions of the Baptist Church, transcendentalism, socialism and pragmatism. A recently released CD, Sketches of My Culture, presents content from his lectures through hip-hop spoken word rhymes.
As a boy growing up in Sacramento, Calif., West was greatly impressed by the Baptist Church. He had been deeply touched by the stories of parishioners who, only two generations from slavery, told stories of blacks maintaining their religious faith during the most trying of times.
West was equally attracted to the commitment of the Black Panthers, and it was from them that he began to understand the importance of community-based political action. However, it was a biography of Teddy Roosevelt that West borrowed from a neighborhood bookmobile that influenced his academic future and led him to Harvard University. After three years, West graduated magna cum laude. He also is a graduate of Princeton.
West's first book, Prophesy Deliverance!, advocated a socially concerned African-American Christianity that draws from Marxism. He also was an influential force in developing the storyline for the Matrix movie trilogy.
He has worked with numerous political and social organizations. West has co-chaired the National Parenting Organization's Task Force on Parent Empowerment and was a member of President Bill Clinton's National Conversation on Race.
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