Identity is not just a topic of study in the academy. When Bianca Williams tried to get funding for her anthropological research, she found how identity also affected higher education itself. "Anthropologists [of color] who do work on people of color in the U.S. have a hard time getting funding because we’re not seen as real anthropologists," Williams said, discussing the institutional stigmas against anthropological research conducted by black women. "To this day, I've never gotten funding from any grant other than Duke-related grants."
Williams and fellow Duke alumna Marla Frederick shared stories about how their personal identities connected with their professional careers during a Wednesday night seminar, "Race, Gender, and Sexuality: AD (After Duke)." It was the first in a series about identity politics in the academy organized by the African and African-American Studies department and co-sponsored by the Department of English and the Graduate School.
Frederick obtained her Ph.D. in cultural anthropology from Duke in 2000 and is tenured Harvard University. Her current research focuses on race and religion in America. A University of Colorado-Boulder faculty member, Williams studied cultural anthropology at Duke at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, earning her doctorate in 2009. She researches the daily lives of black women.
Williams and Frederick both had "deeply unsettling" encounters about race with narrow-minded students. Frederick said the only way to avoid potentially tense situations in the classroom is to facilitate a safe conversation about identity.
"I think it's so important for faculty to teach general courses that incorporate a discussion of race," Frederick said. "Otherwise, there are large numbers of students who will never have this conversation."
Frederick and Williams fielded questions from panel moderators Charlie Piot, a Duke cultural anthropology professor and Karla FC Holloway, a Duke English and law professor, as well as from the audience.
To encourage students and colleagues to overcome their inhibitions about discussing racial and sexual identity, among other social categories, Williams said she will continue to teach provocative classes like "Black Women and Happiness."
"Teaching is my form of activism," Williams said. "If I was going to teach at one of the whitest universities in the country, we were really going to engage in a discussion about [racial identity]."
First-year master in humanities student Elissa Winters said the seminar gave students a chance to talk candidly about normally taboo topics.
As graduate students, you're not really sure where to start with these issues," Winters said. "It can be difficult to bring up in classes, especially classes that aren't on [identity]. I think talking about it in this informal setting was a really good way to breach the topic to people who don't know how to approach it."