Imani Perry
Imani Perry (born 1972 in Birmingham) is the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University in Princeton, New Jersey.
Perry is the author of two books and has published numerous articles on law, cultural studies, and African American studies. She also wrote the notes and introduction to the Barnes and Nobles Classics edition of the Narrative of Sojourner Truth. Through her scholarship, Perry has made significant contributions to the academic study of race and American hip hop; she contributed a chapter to 2014's Born to Use Mics: Reading Nas's "Illmatic".
Perry received her Bachelor of Arts Degree in American Studies and Literature from Yale University in 1994. She subsequently earned her PhD in American Civilization from Harvard University and her JD from Harvard Law School (from which she graduated at the age of 27). She completed a Future Law Professor's Fellowship and received her LLM from Georgetown University Law Center. She credits her childhood exposure to diverse cultures, regions, and religions with her desire to study race.
Before joining the Princeton faculty, Perry taught at Rutgers School of Law in Camden for seven years. She received the New Professor of the Year award in her first year and was promoted to full professor at the end of five years, also winning the Board of Trustees Fellowship for Scholarly Excellence. Perry was also a visiting professor at the University of Pennsylvania Law School and an adjunct professor at both the Columbia University Institute for Research in African American Studies and Georgetown University Law Center.
In 2009, Perry left Rutgers to join the faculty of Princeton University. She currently holds the title of Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies and is affiliated with the Programs in Law and Public Affairs and Gender and Sexuality Studies. She has two forthcoming books, one on the history of the black national anthem (from Oxford University Press) and another on gender, neoliberalism, and the digital age (from Duke University Press).
In August 2014, Perry appeared on the public radio program and podcast On Being, discussing race, community, and American consciousness with host Krista Tippett.
Perry's 2022 book South to America won a National Book Award.
Book titles
- Perry, Imani (2004) Prophets of the Hood: Politics and Poetics in Hip Hop. Duke University Press ISBN 0822334356
- Perry, Imani (2011) More Beautiful and More Terrible: The Embrace and Transcendence of Racial Inequality in the United States. New York University Press ISBN 0814767370
- Perry, Imani (2022) South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation. HarperCollins IBSN 9780062977403
References
- Short, Cody (September 2, 2022) "Imani Perry draws on her hometown, Birmingham, in her new book exploring the South" WBHM.org