Luncheon Speaker - Erik McDuffie, Ph.D.

Erik S. McDuffie is an Associate Professor in the Department of Black American Studies and the Department of History at the University of Delaware.  His research and teaching interests include: African diaspora history, black feminism, black radicalism, black queer theory, black urban history, and black masculinity.  He is the author of the book, Sojourning for Freedom: Black Women, American Communism, and the Making of Black Left Feminism (Durham: Duke University Press, 2011).  The book was the co-winner of the 2011 Letitia Woods Brown Book Award for the best book in African American women’s history from the Association of Black Women Historians.  He is also the author of several scholarly articles in the Journal of African American History, Palimpsest: A Journal of Women, Gender, and the Black International, African Identities; African and Black Diaspora: An International Journal, Radical History Review, and American Communist History, among others journals and edited volumes.  He is working on two new book-length manuscripts, tentatively titled “Garveyism in the American Heartland: The Practice of Diaspora in the Urban Midwest,” and “Decision in Africa: The Council on African Affairs, Diasporic Radicalism, and the Global Cold War,” respectively.  He is a member of several professional associations.  These include the Association of Black Women Historians (ABWH), Association for the Study of the Worldwide African Diaspora (ASWAD), American Historical Association (AHA), Association for the Study of African American Life and History (ASALH), and American Studies Association (ASA).  He served as secretary of ASWAD from 2007 to 2011.

Before joining the University of Delaware, he taught in the Department of African American Studies and the Department of Gender and Women’s Studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, where he won in 2010 the Helen Corley Petit Award.  This honor is given for extraordinary accomplishment during the tenure probationary period by the College of Liberal Arts and Science.  He also received the Outstanding Teaching Award in African American Studies from the Department of African American Studies (Illinois) for AY 2010-11.  He will rejoin the University of Illinois faculty as an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies in August 2012.  He earned his Ph.D. in history in 2003 from New York University with a concentration in the African Diaspora and U.S. history since 1865.