Elizabeth Alexander, who served as chair of Yale’s African American Studies Dept. for four years, delivered the keynote address at the IRAAS 20th Anniversary at Columbia University on May 2, 2014, in which she outlined “best practices” for scholar-administrators and professors of African American Studies departments.
“In 2008, Elizabeth Alexander was selected by President-elect Barack Obama to compose and read a poem for his inauguration on January 20, 2009. She is the author of four books of poems, The Venus Hottentot (1990), Body of Life (1996), Antebellum Dream Book (2001), and American Sublime (2005), which was one of the American Library Association’s 25 Notable Books of the Year as well as one of three finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Her collection of essays on African American literature, painting, and popular culture, The Black Interior, was published in 2004. Her verse play, “Diva Studies,” was produced at the Yale School of Drama in May 1996.”
from the IRAAS YouTube web page
View Elizabeth Alexander’s faculty page in the African American Studies Dept.: http://afamstudies.yale.edu/people/elizabeth-alexander