Professor Katherine Bassard brings her expertise in African American literature to Eastern Mennonite University on Thursday, Nov. 10. She will give a presentation titled ‘Truly a Christian Act’: Freedom and Faith in Peter Randolph’s Sketches of Slave Life” at 7 p.m. in Martin Chapel. Bassard is senior vice provost for faculty affairs at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, Virginia.
The lecture will highlight her latest scholarly work, Sketches of Slave Life and From Slave Cabin to the Pulpit (West Virginia Press, 2016) in which she served as editor of the first anthology of Randolph’s autobiographical writings.
Randolph was an African American abolitionist, minister and community leader. Born enslaved on a Virginia plantation, he moved with several freed slaves to Boston, from which he helped the Baptist church become a thriving denomination among African American Protestants. His writings provide an accurate perspective of enslaved life, African American religious customs, and ministerial work.
Admission is free (donations appreciated), with light refreshments and books available for purchase after the event.
English professor Marti Eads says she is delighted Bassard is visiting EMU. “Praise for Kathryn Bassard’s scholarship in African American literature as well as for her presentation skills has made me eager to have her speak at EMU for some time. Moreover, her Christian conviction animates her work. I expect her campus presentations to be both challenging and edifying.”
Bassard will also give a chapel address Friday, Nov. 11, at 10 a.m. in Martin Chapel and meet with the Black Student Union.
“As an ordained Baptist minister, Kathy is superbly qualified to challenge us with a message on racial reconciliation,” says Language and Literature Department Chair Mike Medley. “As an academic with a remarkable record of scholarly publications and now a top administrator at one of the Commonwealth’s largest universities, she is the kind of leader who will inspire and challenge us all.”
Bassard earned her undergraduate degree at Wake Forest, a master’s degree at VCU, and her PhD, along with a graduate certificate in women’s studies, at Rutgers University.
From 1992-1999, Bassard taught at the University of California – Berkeley where she rose to the rank of associate professor. She returned to VCU in 1999 and was appointed professor of English in 2010.
She has received numerous awards and grants, including recognition by the Center for Teaching Excellence, Honor’s College, Virginia Foundation for the Humanities, as well as from the Pew and Ford foundations. In 2005, she was the recipient of the VCU’s prestigious Elske V.P. Smith Distinguished Lecturer award.
Recent publications include Spiritual Interrogations: Culture, Gender, and Community in Early African American Women’s Writing (Princeton University Press, 1999) and Transforming Scriptures: African American Women Writers and the Bible (University of Georgia Press, 2010).
She examines poetry, novels, speeches, sermons, and prayers by African American women from Maria W. Stewart to Zora Neale Hurston and Toni Morrison, discussing how such texts respond as a collective “literary witness” to the use of the Bible for purposes of social domination. Bassard spoke about this topic in 2012 as a guest on the radio show “With Good Reason.”