Editorial Staff

Stanford’s National Humanities Medal Winner Prof. Arnold Rampersad on Langston Hughes & Ralph Ellison

/in , , , , , , , /by Editorial Staff
Share on Facebook
Share on Twitter
Share on
LinkedIn
+

This week on “The Learning Curve,” Gerard and Cara talk with Professor Arnold Rampersad, the Sara Hart Kimball Professor Emeritus in Humanities at Stanford University and recipient of the National Humanities Medal for his books including The Life of Langston Hughes and Ralph Ellison: A Biography. They discuss what teachers and students today should know about Langston Hughes’s celebrated literary life and poetry, including his influence on African-American literati during the Harlem Renaissance, and how his works, such as “Harlem (A Dream Deferred)” and “Mississippi –1955,” impacted the Civil Rights Movement. They then turn to Ralph Ellison, whose 1952 novel, Invisible Man, is among the greatest works of 20th-century American fiction. Professor Rampersad shares the major formative experiences and intellectual influences on Ellison’s life and writing, including his Oklahoma upbringing, Tuskegee Institute education, and interest in literary figures such as Dostoevsky, Hardy, Melville, Twain, and Faulkner. He also offers insights on the connection between the writings of Hughes and Ellison, and blues and jazz music, with its complexity and exploration of suffering. Professor Rampersad concludes the interview with a reading from his biography of Ralph Ellison.

Stories of the Week: In an effort to stem COVID-related learning loss, more than 230 public schools in Hawaii will offer summer school on campus for free, using federal relief funds. In Baltimore, high school students started a mentorship program to help younger peers on topics such as financial assistance, standardized testing, and course selection.

As the episode was being recorded, this breaking international news story was announced: “Derek Chauvin found guilty on all counts in the murder of George Floyd.” Our co-hosts mentioned it during the interview, though they will explore it in greater detail during their commentary on the next episode.

Guest:

Arnold Rampersad is the Sara Hart Kimball Professor Emeritus in the Humanities at Stanford University. A graduate of Bowling Green State University, he earned his Ph.D. in English and American Literature at Harvard. He also taught at the University of Virginia, Rutgers, Columbia, and Princeton. His books include The Art and Imagination of W.E.B. Du Bois; The Life of Langston Hughes (2 vols.); Days of Grace: A Memoir, co-authored with Arthur Ashe; Jackie Robinson: A Biography; and Ralph Ellison: A Biography. His edited volumes include The Oxford Anthology of African-American Poetry; Complete Poems of Langston Hughes; and, as co-editor, Selected Letters of Langston Hughes. Winner in 1986 of the National Book Critics Circle Award in biography and autobiography, he was later a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in biography and, in 2007, the National Book Award in non-fiction prose for his biography of Ellison. He won fellowships from the MacArthur Foundation (1991-1996), the J.S. Guggenheim Foundation, the NEH, the Rockefeller Foundation, and the ACLS. Princeton University awarded him its Howard T. Behrman Medal for distinction in the Humanities. In 2011, he received the National Humanities Medal from President Obama at the White House, and Harvard awarded him its Graduate School of Arts and Sciences Medal in 2014. He holds honorary doctorates from Harvard, Yale, Columbia, and the University of the West Indies, among other schools. He is a member of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences and the American Philosophical Society.

The next episode will air on Wednesday, April 28th, 2021 at 12 pm ET with guest, Dr. Marguerite Roza, Research Professor and Director of the Edunomics Lab at Georgetown University.

Tweet of the Week:

News Links:

Hawaii public schools to offer free summer school

https://www.staradvertiser.com/2021/04/18/hawaii-news/hawaii-public-schools-to-offer-free-summer-school/

Teens at a Baltimore County magnet school saw a need adults couldn’t meet. So they stepped in to mentor others

https://www.baltimoresun.com/education/bs-md-eastern-tech-mentors-20210419-xlgktww4pnempa6a3xjathgfxu-story.html

Get new episodes of The Learning Curve in your inbox!

Related Posts

Morehouse’s Prof. Marisela Martinez-Cola on Pre-Brown Cases for Educational Equality

This week on The Learning Curve, Morehouse College's Dr. Marisela Martinez-Cola, JD, discusses her book The Bricks before Brown: The Chinese American, Native American, and Mexican Americans' Struggle for Educational Equality, and the long struggle for equal opportunity in American education.

Marquette’s Dr. Howard Fuller on School Choice, Charter Schools, and Race

This week on The Learning Curve, Dr. Howard Fuller, Founder/Director of the Institute for the Transformation of Learning (ITL) at Marquette University, discusses education reform, school choice, charter public schools, race, and the ongoing struggle to provide educational opportunity to all children in America.

Columbia’s Pulitzer Winner Prof. Eric Foner on Lincoln, Slavery, & Reconstruction

This week on The Learning Curve, guest cohosts Charlie Chieppo and Alisha Searcy speak with Dr. Eric Foner, Professor Emeritus of History at Columbia University and Pulitzer Prize-winning author on Lincoln, the Civil War, and Reconstruction.

Fmr. Mississippi Chief Dr. Carey Wright on State Leadership & NAEP Gains

This week on The Learning Curve, Dr. Carey Wright, former Mississippi state superintendent of education, discusses the dramatic improvements in fourth graders' reading scores in Mississippi during her time there, the importance of early childhood education and literacy programs, the role of literature and art, and the inspiration educators can draw from Mississippi's heroes in the Civil Rights Movement.

U-Hong Kong Prof. Frank Dikötter on China: Mao’s Tyranny to Rising Superpower

This week on The Learning Curve, Dr. Frank Dikötter discusses Chairman Mao Zedong, the Chinese Communist revolution, the Great Leap Forward, China's economic ascent under Deng Xiaoping, and the realities that the U.S. and the West must understand as they seek to engage with China as a rising superpower.

Prof. Lorraine Pangle on the Founders, Education, and Civics

This week on The Learning Curve, Lorraine Pangle, professor of political philosophy at the University of Texas at Austin, discusses how the Founding Fathers' grounding in classical and Enlightenment thought helped shape America's Constitution, the Bill of Rights, and the role of public education as a wellspring of republican self-government.

U.K.’s Robert McCrum on P.G. Wodehouse, ‘Jeeves & Wooster,’ and April Fools’ Day

In this special April Fools' Day edition of The Learning Curve, British writer and editor Robert McCrum, discusses English comic genius P.G. Wodehouse, his inimitable prose style, and much-needed humor he brought to 1920s and '30s Britain in the wake of World War I and the 1918 flu epidemic.

Ashley Soifer on Microschools, Pods, & Homeschooling

This week on The Learning Curve, Ashley Soifer, Chief Innovation Officer of the National Microschooling Center discusses these innovative schooling options, in which families and innovators are using a wide array of education choices that offer parents flexibility and greater control over how, where, what, and when their children learn.

UVA Prof. Dan Willingham on Learning Science & K-12 Schooling

This week on The Learning Curve, University of Virginia Professor Dan Willingham discusses the psychology of learning, his advocacy of using scientific knowledge in classroom teaching and education policy, and his critique of the “learning styles theory” of education.

UK Oxford’s Sir Jonathan Bate on Shakespeare’s ‘Julius Caesar’

This week on The Learning Curve, U.K. Oxford and ASU Shakespeare scholar Prof. Sir Jonathan Bate, discusses Shakespeare's timeless play Julius Caesar on the Ides of March. Sir Jonathan explains the Roman lessons for American constitutionalism, including warnings against the dangers of dictatorship and civil war.

Lauren Redniss on Marie Curie, STEM, & Women’s History

0 Comments
/
This week on The Learning Curve, Cara and Gerard mark Women's History Month with Lauren Redniss, author of Radioactive: Marie & Pierre Curie: A Tale of Love and Fallout, the first work of visual nonfiction to be named a finalist for the National Book Award.

“The Last Candid Man”: B.U.’s Dr. John Silber

0 Comments
/
This week on The Learning Curve, Cara and Gerard talk with Rachel Silber Devlin about her memoir, Snapshots of My Father, John Silber, which captures the wide-ranging and remarkable life of the late philosopher, teacher, and president of Boston University.