Imani Perry
Imani Perry (born September 5, 1972 in Birmingham) is a scholar and writer, currently teaching at Harvard University in Cambridge, Massachusetts. She is the author of several books and has published numerous articles on law, cultural studies, and African American studies.
Perry is the daughter of Theresa Perry, a noted scholar in Africana studies and education, and step-daughter of epidemiologist Steve Whitman, whom Theresa met while teaching at Miles College. She and her mother moved to Cambridge, Massachusetts in 1978 and she also spent time in Chicago, Illinois, where her stepfather was working. She attended Cambridge Friends School and Concord Academy.
Perry earned her bachelor of arts degree in American Studies and Literature at Yale University in 1994. She subsequently earned her PhD in American Civilization from Harvard University and her Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School. She completed a Future Law Professor's Fellowship and received her LLM from Georgetown University Law Center. She credits her childhood exposure to diverse cultures, regions, and religions with her desire to study race.
Perry taught at Rutgers School of Law in Camden, New Jersey for seven years. She received the New Professor of the Year award in her first year and was promoted to full professor at the end of five years, also winning the Board of Trustees Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence. Perry was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an adjunct professor at both the Columbia University Institute for Research in African American Studies and Georgetown University Law Center.
In 2009, Perry left Rutgers to join the faculty of Princeton University, where she held the title of Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies and was affiliated with the Programs in Law and Public Affairs and Gender and Sexuality Studies. In 2021 she was awarded a Fellowship in Intellectual and Cultural History from the John Simon Guggenheim Memorial Foundation.
Perry's 2022 book South to America won a National Book Award and the 2024 Alabama Library Association award for nonfiction. In 2023 Perry joined the faculty of Harvard University as the Henry A. Morss Jr and Elisabeth W. Morss Professor of Studies of Women, Gender and Sexuality and of African and African American Studies, and the Carol K. Pforzheimer Professor at the Harvard Radcliffe Institute. The same year she was recognized as an "Alabama Humanities Fellow" by the Alabama Humanities Alliance, and was awarded an unrestricted "Genius Grant" from the MacArthur Foundation.
Publications
- Perry, Imani (2004) Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Duke University Press ISBN 0822334356
- Perry, Imani (2011) More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States. New York University Press ISBN 0814767370
- Perry, Imani (2018) Looking for Lorraine: The Radiant and Radical Life of Lorraine Hansberry. Beacon Press ISBN 9780807064498
- Perry, Imani (2018) May We Forever Stand: A History of the Black National Anthem. John Hope Franklin Series in African American History and Culture. University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9781469638607
- Perry, Imani (2018) Vexy Thing: On Gender and Liberation. Duke University Press IBSN 9781478000600
- Perry, Imani (2022) South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. HarperCollins IBSN 9780062977403
References
- Holly Jr, Eugene (August 14, 2018) "Who Wrote 'A Raisin in the Sun'? Imani Perry Knows." Publishers Weekly
- Short, Cody (September 2, 2022) "Imani Perry draws on her hometown, Birmingham, in her new book exploring the South" WBHM.org
- Specker, Lawrence (October 4, 2023) "Birmingham native Imani Perry among winners of $800,000 ‘genius grants’." AL.com
- Moore, Tamika (December 12, 2023) "Birmingham’s Imani Perry, MacArthur Fellow, on Her Most Important Lesson." The Birmingham Times
External links
- Imani Perry at Harvard.edu
- Imani Perry: 2023 MacArthur Fellow on YouTube.com