“Dr. Cornel West, ‘Race Matters…A Timely Discussion on the Fabric of America.’ Renowned public intellectual delivers the 2019 Collins Distinguished Speakers’ Lecture April 26, 2019 – University of Oregon.
Made possible by the Collins Fund, this lecture series extends the English Department’s commitments to critical cultural analysis, social justice, and ethical discourse. Past speakers have included Jonathan Franzen (2018), Viet Thanh Nguyen (2017), and Laura Kipnis (2016). Cornel West is currently Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University, with a joint appointment in the Harvard Divinity School and the Department of African and African American Studies. He is an ardent political activist, a keen social critic, and a prolific writer. His publications include Race Matters (1993); The Future of the Race (1996), written with Dr. Henry Louis Gates, Jr.; and The Rich and the Rest of Us: A Poverty Manifesto (2014), written with Tavis Smiley.”