Wednesday, March 5, 2025

On The Essential Need For Human Agency and Self Determination: A Lecture and Conversation with Eddie Glaude Jr., PhD at Stony Brook University, February 27, 2025

Stony Brook University Presidential Lecture with Eddie Glaude Jr.



Stony Brook University

March 4, 2025

Celebrated author and scholar Eddie Glaude Jr. challenged students, faculty, and other members of the Stony Brook University community to engage with the complexities of history, truth, and democracy at his Presidential Lecture on February 27.

VIDEO: 
 


 
A Conversation with Eddie Glaude Jr., PhD
 
Join Executive Vice President and Provost Carl Lejuez for a special afternoon with The New York Times bestselling author and scholar

Thursday, February 27, 2025
Charles B. Wang Center Theater


Eddie Glaude Jr., PhD, is an author, political commentator, public intellectual and educator who examines the complex dynamics of the American experience.

His writings take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

Glaude is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and former chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University (2009–2023). His latest book is We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For.

Guided by your questions, Glaude will examine the concept of anti-racism, which rejects the idea that some people should be valued more than others. He will also talk about the importance of creating conditions for people to think more carefully and systematically about the issues they confront.

New York Times bestselling author, political commentator and educator Eddie Glaude Jr., PhD, will join Stony Brook University Executive Vice President and Provost Carl Lejuez in conversation at the next Presidential Lecture on Thursday, February 27.

Glaude, whose latest book is We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For, is the James S. McDonnell Distinguished University Professor and former chair of the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University (2009–2023). He examines the complex dynamics of the American experience, and his writings take a wide look at Black communities, the difficulties of race in the United States and the challenges we face as a democracy.

Guided by questions from the audience, Glaude will examine the concept of anti-racism, which rejects the idea that some people should be valued more than others. He will also talk about the importance of creating conditions for people to think more carefully and systematically about the issues they confront.



We Are the Leaders We Have Been Looking For is based on the W.E.B. Du Bois Lectures Glaude delivered at Harvard University. In it, Glaude shows how ordinary Black Americans can shake off their reliance on a small group of professional politicians and pursue self-cultivation and grassroots movements to achieve a more just and perfect democracy.

In his writing and speaking, Glaude is an American critic in the tradition of James Baldwin and Ralph Waldo Emerson, confronting history and bringing our nation’s complexities, vulnerabilities and hope into full view. Hope that is, in one of his favorite Du Bois quotes, “not hopeless, but a bit unhopeful.” His 2015 commencement remarks at Colgate University titled, “Turning Our Backs,” was recognized by the The New York Times as one of the best commencement speeches of the year.

Other writings include Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul, In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America and The New York Times bestseller Begin Again: James Baldwin’s America and Its Urgent Lessons for our Own.


TAGS: anti-racism events Presidential Lecture The New York Times