Melissa Harris-Perry to Deliver Opening Keynote Address at 115th AAA Annual Meeting
Melissa Harris-Perry, former MSNBC host, award-winning author, and Maya Angelou Presidential Chair at Wake Forest University, will deliver an inaugural keynote address at the opening general session ceremony of the American Anthropological Association’s (AAA) 115th Annual Meeting in Minneapolis on Wednesday, November 16.
Professor Harris-Perry is the author of the award-winning Barbershops, Bibles, and BET: Everyday Talk and Black Political Thought and Sister Citizen: Shame, Stereotypes, and Black Women in America. She is also the executive director of the Pro Humanitate Institute at Wake Forest University. The Institute is a, “core of learning, teaching, research, service, and action that transforms the ethos of Wake Forest University into an explicit mission connected to clear practices with meaningful social justice outcomes.”
“Professor Harris-Perry’s work to support academia, foster civic engagement, and address community-identified needs in order to build more meaningful lives and a more just world makes her supremely qualified to deliver this keynote address,” said AAA’s Annual Meeting Program Chair Samuel Martinez. “We’re all working towards the same goals.”
Professor Harris-Perry is the founding director of the Anna Julia Cooper Center, an interdisciplinary center at Wake Forest University that uses the tools of the academy to build scholarly foundations for intersectional research, teaching, and community engagement. The Center’s current initiatives include “Advancing Equity for Women & Girls of Color: A Research Agenda for the Next Decade,” and the “Collaborative to Advance Equity Through Research.”
The AAA Annual Meeting, with more than 6,500 attendees, is the world’s largest gathering of anthropologists. The 2016 Annual Meeting, held in Minneapolis from November 16 – 20, will feature scholarly sessions, board meetings, receptions, special events, installations, a film festival, networking opportunities, and more. Registration information can be found here.
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Founded in 1902, the American Anthropological Association, with more than 10,000 members, is the world’s largest professional organization of anthropologists. The Association is dedicated to advancing human understanding and tackling the world’s most pressing problems.
