Tracy Denean Sharpley-Whiting, PhD

T. Denean Sharpley-Whiting is the Gertrude Conaway Vanderbilt Distinguished Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies and French at Vanderbilt äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾ where she directs the Callie House Research Center for the Study of Global Black Cultures and Politics. She is also the Vice Provost for Arts, Libraries and Global Engagement.
A comparative Europeanist and scholar of women, gender, and African Diaspora Studies, she is author/editor of 15 books and three novels. SheÌýhasÌýtestified before the 110thÌýCongress in 2007 and is also editor ofÌýThe Speech: Race and Barack Obama’s A More Perfect Union. Sharpley-Whiting lectures widely in the United States and abroad and has offered commentary on a range of issues for Fox News, MSNBC, NPR, C-SPAN2, CBS News, the BBCÌýLive Television, Radio SBS Australia, and Oprah Satellite Radio.Ìý
She was the 2006 winner of the Horace Mann Medal for Distinguished Graduate School Alumni from Brown äçÐÄvlogÃâ·ÑBÕ¾. In October 2010, Sharpley-Whiting was named one of the top 100 young leaders of the African American community, ages 25-45, byÌýThe Root, an online magazine founded by scholar Henry Louis Gates Jr.Ìý A native of Saint Louis, Missouri, she is currently working on three monographs,ÌýThe Black Musketeer: Race and Alexander Dumas;ÌýMen I’d Like to Have Known:ÌýThe Adventurous Lives of a Revolutionary Romantic, A Contraband Soldier, An Africanist Auteur, and A Peripatetic Painter; andÌýThe Variegated Lives of Josephine Baker.ÌýProfessor Sharpley-WhitingÌýhas appeared in two documentaries related to Josephine Baker,ÌýJosephine Baker: The Story of AwakeningÌýby Kepler 22 Productions with ARTE France and the PBS-producedÌýHarlem inÌýMontmartre: A Paris Story. Editor of the journalÌýPalimpsest:ÌýWomen, Gender, and the BlackÌýInternational,ÌýsheÌýis also a founding advisory board member of theÌýMusée Franco-Américain du Château deÌýBlérancourt and the Sussex Centre for American Studies and winner of fellowships from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Camargo Foundation, and Howard Foundation, among others.Ìý