Talk: “An Uncommon Faith: W.E.B. Du Bois and African American Religion” by Eddie S. Glaude Jr.
- Event Date: Thursday, April 13, 2017
- Time: 7:30 pm (CDT)
- Location: Knight Auditorium, Spurlock Museum, 600 S. Gregory St., Urbana, IL
- Cost: Free Admission
Part of the Department of Religion Marjorie Hall Thulin Lecture Series
In his lecture, Glaude will discuss Du Bois “as a figure that represents a third way between William James’s and John Dewey’s view of religion—as someone who enables us to take up the call for a religious ideal and who keeps track of the need for consolation without appealing to metaphysical foundations that provide comfort.”
Glaude is an author who “speaks to the black and blue in America.” He writes about black communities and their complexities, vulnerabilities and opportunities for hope. Those who have influenced his writings include W.E.B. Du Bois, James Baldwin, Malcolm X and Bobby “Blue” Bland. He is the author of numerous books including Democracy in Black: How Race Still Enslaves the American Soul (2016) and In a Shade of Blue: Pragmatism and the Politics of Black America (2007). He is currently at work on a book about James Baldwin.
He is a columnist for Time Magazine, has written for The New York Times and The Huffington Post, and regularly provides commentary on radio and television news programs like Democracy Now, Morning Joe, and the 11th Hour. He also hosts the podcast AAS21, recorded at Princeton University in Stanhope Hall, the African American Studies department’s home.
Glaude holds a master’s degree in African American Studies from Temple University, and a Ph.D. in Religion from Princeton University. He began his teaching career at Bowdoin College, and he has been a visiting scholar at Amherst College and Harvard. In 2011 he delivered Harvard’s Du Bois lectures.
The Marjorie Hall Thulin Lecture is presented annually by the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign Department of Religion. Marjorie Hall Thulin (1910–2009) graduated from the University of Illinois in 1931. She enjoyed a successful career in advertising. Her desire for students to understand how religion grows and functions in a complex society, especially Christianity in American society, led her to endow a fund that makes it possible for an internationally known scholar of religion and contemporary culture to be resident on the Champaign-Urbana campus for several days each academic year.
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