Dark Continent: Eartha Kitt

Friday, January 02, 2009

Eartha Kitt

I’ve been in discussion with my younger family members, Ashley and Burgess, about Eartha Kitt (1927-2008). I think she is a fascinating person and deserves serious study. Her life spanned important decades and her career, the rise of TV and the crumbling of segregation. The New York Times obituary called her “among the first widely known African-American sex symbols” [http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/26/arts/26kitt.html?_r=1&partner=permalink&exprod=permalink]. The Times compares her to Lena Horne; but she was a very different kind of persona. There’s much to learn about black poverty, gender, and complexion. My quick search of electronic sources has not revealed any major studies. Someone should go for it!

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Academic Biography

Professor White's first book, Sierra Leone’s Settler Women Traders: Women on the Afro-European Frontier, was winner of the Letitia Brown Memorial Publication Price in 1987. Her book with Iris Berger, Women in Sub-Saharan Africa: Restoring Women to History, has become a standard reference text and has been translated into Japanese. Her most recent book is Dark Continent of Our Bodies: Black Feminism and the Politics of Respectability. She has been named a Fulbright Senior Research Scholar in Sierra Leone and a Mellon Scholar and has received a Kidder-Peabody Grant for research in The Gambia. Her appointments have included chair of the Five College Black Studies Executive Committee and member of the Graduate Faculty of the University of Massachusetts. She has a B.A. from Wheaton College, an M.A. in African history, and a Ph.D. in history from Boston University.

Along with her teaching and scholarly career, she has had a distinguished career in academic administration. At NYU, she was appointed Vice Provost in 2005. She advised the Provost on faculty appointments, tenure, and promotion. She worked closely with the Faculty Senators Council to enhance work-life conditions for faculty. She also spearheaded the university’s efforts to diversify the faculty and has responsibility for the Office of Academic Appointments, the Center for Teaching Excellence, and the Faculty Resource Network, a faculty development consortium of 52 institutions of higher education.

From 1998 to 2005, Professor White was dean of NYU's Gallatin School of Individualized Study, where she greatly increased the school’s visibility and reputation. From 2001-05, she was chair of NYU’s Deans Council. Prior to coming to NYU, she was a professor of history and Black studies at Hampshire College, where she also served as Dean of the School of Social Science and Dean of Faculty. While completing her Ph.D. at Boston University, she was an instructor at the University of Sierra Leone and a research assistant at the Afro-American Studies Center at Boston University.