Temple University Women's Studies Department in partnership with the African-American Studies Department is proud to host award-winning Black feminist writer, historian, and long time activist Professor Barbara Ransby as we celebrate the recent release of her highly anticipated biography on Eslanda Goode Robeson, entitled Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson (Yale University Press, 2013). 

The book talk, signing, and reception will be held on Thursday, February 14, 2013 from 4:00PM to 6:00PM at the Center for the Humanities (CHAT), which is located on the 10th Floor of Gladfelter Hall on 1115 Polett Walk on Temple's campus.

Attached are flyers in jpg and pdf format. Please join us and/or spread the word far and wide to your networks (in and/or near Philadelphia).

About Eslanda Goode Robeson:

“Eslanda "Essie" Cardozo Goode Robeson lived a colorful and amazing life. Her career and commitments took her many places: colonial Africa in 1936, the front lines of the Spanish Civil War, the founding meeting of the United Nations, Nazi-occupied Berlin, Stalin's Russia, and China two months after Mao's revolution. She was a woman of unusual accomplishment—an anthropologist, a prolific journalist, a tireless advocate of women's rights, an outspoken anti-colonial and antiracist activist, and an internationally sought-after speaker. Yet historians for the most part have confined Essie to the role of Mrs. Paul Robeson, a wife hidden in the large shadow cast by her famous husband. In this masterful book, biographer Barbara Ransby refocuses attention on Essie, one of the most important and fascinating [B]lack women of the twentieth century.”

About Barbara Ransby:

Barbara Ransby, PhD, is a Professor of African American Studies, Gender and Women’s Studies, and History at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC) where she directs both the campus-wide Social Justice Initiative and the Gender and Women’s Studies Program. She previously served as Interim Vice Provost for Planning and Programs (2011 -2012) at UIC. Professor Ransby is the author of the multi-highly acclaimed biography, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision (University of Illinois Press, 2005). The book received eight national awards and recognitions including co-winner of the Liberty-Legacy Award from the Organization of American Historians, the Joan Kelley Prize for best book in women’s history from the American Historical Association, the Gustavas Meyers Prize for book on human rights, and a book award from the Association of Black Women Historians. As an activist, Professor Ransby was an initiator of the African American Women in Defense of Ourselves campaign in 1991, a co-convener of The Black Radical Congress in 1998, and a founder of Ella’s Daughters, a network of women working in Ella Baker’s tradition.

Additionally, Dr. Ransby will be a featured guest on WHYY-91FM Radio Times on Friday, February 15, 2013 at 11am. If you aren’t in the Delaware Valley, you can still hear the program live online http://whyy.org/cms/radiotimes/ or listen to the archive of the show at a later date.

Regardless of if you’re based in Philadelphia or not, Eslanda: The Large and Unconventional Life of Mrs. Paul Robeson is a must read! Similar to her meticulous work documenting Ella Baker in her multi-award winning biography Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic Vision, Dr. Ransby shines a very bright and long overdue light on Mrs. Eslanda Goode Robeson.

Purchase your copy today!!!!

Warmly,

Aishah