Born in the heat of struggle, the Black Studies movement in the United States looks back now at more than fifty years of curricular development and ahead to a hopeful future at least as long. This year’s Trilling Lecture examines the moment Black Studies is transformed, virtually overnight, from protest on the streets of America into a curricular object—still controversial nonetheless—that has altered the face of humanistic study in the United States. The outcome is both a cause worthy of celebration and the occasion for a cautionary tale.

The Trilling Lecture will be given by Dr. Hortense Spillers, with respondents Rich Blint and Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak.