Yale's Elijah Anderson to deliver lecture as SPPA marks 50th
12:18 p.m., Oct. 24, 2011--Eminent scholar and professor Elijah
Anderson of Yale University will deliver a talk on race and civility on
Tuesday, Nov. 15, giving the first speech in a series of distinguished
lectures organized by the School of Public Policy and Administration (SPPA) to commemorate its 50-year anniversary.
SPPA, established in 1961 to focus on the challenges of urban
America, will celebrate its milestone anniversary with numerous
year-round events, including the lecture series and a daylong career
conference in March.
Andersons lecture, which will take place at 5 p.m., Tuesday, Nov. 15, in Bayard Sharp Hall, will examine his new book, The Cosmopolitan Canopy: Race and Civility in Everyday Life.
Best known for his award-winning book, Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City,
which showed how the oppositional behavior of some urban residents is a
reaction to the harsh environments in which they reside, his new book
introduces the concept of the "cosmopolitan canopy -- public spaces in
center-city Philadelphia that create islands of civility surrounded by
ethnic enclaves, ghettos and suburbs where segregation is the norm.
In his new book, Anderson shows how the city's racial and ethnic
groups interact when they gather in parks, restaurants, shopping malls
and other public spaces. Contrary to the assumptions of many, the
interactions are mostly relaxed and cordial.
Anderson's ground-breaking study of the cosmopolitan canopy provides
a new understanding of the complexities of present day race relations
and reveals the unique opportunities for cross-cultural interaction,
says Leland Ware, the Louis L. Redding Chair and professor of law and
public policy at SPPA.
Anderson, the William K. Lanman, Jr., Professor of Sociology at Yale
University, is one of the premier urban ethnographers in the United
States. He has served on the board of directors of the American Academy
of Political and Social Science and is formerly a vice-president of the
American Sociological Association. He has also served as a consultant to
a variety of government agencies, including the White House, the United
States Congress, the National Academy of Science and the National
Science Foundation.
The Nov. 15 lecture is free and open to the public.
Originally published by UDaily.
