Race and Democracy

Lester Spence

Lester Spence

Examining Race in Politics

Award-winning political scientist Lester Spence will discuss the causes and consequences of President Donald Trump’s election during the program, “Trump, Race and the Slow Death of Democracy,” on Thursday, Feb. 16, at 7 p.m. in the Anita Tuvin Schlechter (ATS) Auditorium.

Spence is associate professor of political science and Africana studies at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. He is also scholar-in-residence at the Baltimore-based Center for Emerging Media. His research focuses on racial and urban politics. Spence is the recipient of numerous awards, including the Johns Hopkins University Community Fellowship for 2015-16 and the Johns Hopkins University Excellence in Teaching Award in 2009. He is the author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics and Stare in the Darkness: The Limits of Hip-hop and Black Politics, and he is currently working on his third book, Live and Let Die: HIV/AIDS, Biopolitics and the Topologies of Blackness.

The event is sponsored by the Clarke Forum for Contemporary Issues and co-sponsored by the Popel Shaw Center for Race & Ethnicity and the Division of Student Life. Additional co-sponsors are the departments of American studies, political science and sociology and the program in policy studies. Initiated by Clarke Forum student project managers, the program is part of the Leadership in an Age of Uncertainty Series.

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Published February 13, 2017