Renowned Sociologist Explores “Iconic Ghetto” in Talk At Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems March 27

Elijah Anderson, one of the leading urban ethnographers in the United States and professor and director of the Urban Ethnography Project at Yale University, will deliver a free public lecture at noon March 27 titled “The Iconic Ghetto: Effects on Everyday Lives of African Americans.” The talk will be held at Pitt’s Center on Race and Social Problems, School of Social Work Conference Center, 20th floor, Cathedral of Learning.

Anderson’s lecture is part of the center’s Reed Smith Spring 2013 Speaker Series. Registration is not required; lunch will be provided. Call 412-624-7382 or visit www.crsp.pitt.edu for more information.

A renowned cultural theorist, Anderson also holds the William K. Lanman Jr. Professorship in Sociology at Yale. He has written and edited award-winning books, book chapters, and scholarly reports on race in American cities.

He is the author of Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (W. W. Norton Company, Inc., 1999), winner of the 2000 Komarovsky Award from the Eastern Sociological Society and called by the Washington Post “an informative, clearheaded, and sobering book.” Other prominent works include Streetwise: Race, Class, and Change in an Urban Community (University of Chicago Press, 1992), winner of the American Sociological Association’s Robert E. Park Award; and the classic work A Place on the Corner: A Study of Black Street Corner Men (University of Chicago Press, 1978; second edition, 2003). His most recent work is The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life (W. W. Norton Company, Inc., 2011).

Before joining the Yale faculty in 2007, Anderson served for many years as the Charles and William L. Day Distinguished Professor of the Social Sciences at the University of Pennsylvania.

Anderson has served on the board of the American Academy of Political and Social Science and as vice president of the American Sociological Association. He has served in an editorial capacity for Ethnography, the American Journal of Sociology, and several other publications, and as a consultant to the White House, U.S. Congress, the National Academy of Sciences, and the National Science Foundation.

Anderson earned his master’s degree in sociology from the University of Chicago and his PhD from Northwestern University.

The Center on Race and Social Problems’ annual Reed Smith Speaker Series provides an opportunity for faculty, staff, students, and members of the community to engage in race-related discussions of mutual interest.