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Release: February 20, 1995
Contact: Tom Krattenmaker (609/258-5748)


Princeton to Host Graduate Student Conference
On Significance of Race in American Society

PRINCETON, N.J. -- More than 50 graduate students from Princeton
University and 23 other institutions are scheduled to assemble at
Princeton March 3-4 for a conference on race and American culture.

Titled "'The Negro Problem': 1895-1995," the conference will
address the significance of race, blackness and African-American
culture in American society at the close of the 20th Century.

The keynote speaker is Robin D.G. Kelley, professor of history at
New York University. Kelley is scheduled to speak on "Looking
B(l)ackward: African-American Studies in the Age of Identity
Politics."

In addition, a series of conference panels will discuss subjects
including "Beyond Welfare Queens and Wolfpacks," "The Politics of
Sexuality," and "Art in the Era of Lynching." Serving as faculty
respondents will be more than a dozen members of the Princeton
faculty, including Arnold Rampersad, director of Princeton's
Program in Afro-American Studies.

The conference is sponsored by the Program in Afro-American
Studies, the Office of the President, the Office of the Provost,
the Graduate School, the Program in American Studies, the Woodrow
Wilson School of Public and International Affairs, the Davis
Center for Historical Studies, the Program in Women's Studies, the
departments of Anthropology, Economics and English, the Third
World Center and the Association of Black Princeton Alumni.

The conference -- to be held in Robertson Hall at the Woodrow
Wilson School -- will begin at noon on March 3. It will adjourn at
6 p.m. that evening and resume at 8 a.m. the following day.

Pre-registration is strongly encouraged for the conference, which
is open to the public. The registration fee is $10. To register,
contact Judith Jackson Fossett or Jeffrey Tucker at (609) 258-
1065.

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