Annual James Weldon Johnson Lecture Featuring Dr. Deborah E. McDowell

From the venue:

The James Weldon Johnson Institute is honored to welcome Deborah E. McDowell, a distinguished scholar of African American and American literature, for the Annual James Weldon Johnson Lecture 2025. Dr. McDowell is the Alice Griffin Professor of Literary Studies and former Director of the Carter G. Woodson Institute for African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia. Her influential work includes ‘The Changing Same’: Studies in Fiction by African-American Women, Leaving Pipe Shop: Memories of Kin, and The Punitive Turn: Race, Inequality, and Mass Incarceration, co-edited with Juan Battle and Claudrena Harold.

Dr. McDowell’s lecture, titled “I’ll Make Me a World: James Weldon Johnson and the Long Emancipation,” will take place on Thursday, April 24, 2025, at 4:00 PM in the Atwood Chemistry Building, Room 360, at Emory University (1515 Dickey Dr, Atlanta, GA 30322).

Attendees are encouraged to park at the Peavine Visitor Parking Lot, located at 27 Eagle Row, Atlanta, GA 30322.