Effect of race on wealth the subject of interdisciplinary, multi-institutional research circle

Faculty members from Vanderbilt, Fisk University, Meharry Medical College and Tennessee State University have joined together to form a research circle on “Race and Wealth Disparity in 21st Century America.” The products of the two-year collaborative program will include a public lecture series, the first set for Nov. 7, and a set of edited teaching materials on how various disciplines look at race and wealth disparity in the United States.

The interdisciplinary program brings together faculty from the social sciences, humanities, law, education, medicine and management as well as a practitioner from the Tennessee Network for Community Economic Development to explore as a group the many different aspects of race and wealth disparity in the United States’ recent history.

The project, co-sponsored by the Robert Penn Warren Center for the Humanities and the Vanderbilt University Law School, is funded by Vanderbilt University and a portion of a $100,000 Ford Foundation grant awarded last year to Beverly Moran, professor of law and sociology at Vanderbilt. Moran directs the research circle.

Participants have spent the first part of this year learning about the subject in preparation for the public lecture series, each nominating a relevant article from his or her area of expertise for the group to read and discuss. “By reading and discussing these articles, we’ve developed a common language and created a canon of literature about this subject,” Moran said.

Next, each participant will prepare and deliver a public lecture on the subject from the perspective of his or her discipline. The first lecture is “White Collar Blues: Movin’ on in the New Gilded Age,” to be presented by Cecelia Tichi, William R. Kenan Jr. Professor of English at Vanderbilt, at 4:10 p.m. on Nov. 7. The lecture will be in the Covington Room of the Law School. Other lectures will follow every month or six weeks and run through the end of 2003.

In addition to Moran and Tichi, participants in the program are:

• Bruce Barry, Brownlee O. Currey Associate Professor of Management (Organization Studies) at the Owen Graduate School of Management and associate professor of sociology at Vanderbilt
• Tony Brown, assistant professor of sociology at Vanderbilt
• Dan Cornfield, professor of sociology at Vanderbilt
• Anne Demo, assistant professor of communication studies at Vanderbilt
• Edward Fischer, associate professor of anthropology at Vanderbilt
• Michelle Flynn, executive director of the Tennessee Network for Community Economic Development
• James Foster, professor of economics at Vanderbilt
• Dennis Kezar, assistant professor of English at Vanderbilt
• Garvin S. Maffett, vice president for advancement and college relations at Meharry Medical College
• Diana Marver, associate professor of medical administration and clinical associate professor of nursing at Vanderbilt
• Oscar Miller Jr., associate professor and head of the department of social work and sociology at Tennessee State University
• James Quirin, professor of history at Fisk University
• Benjamin Radcliff, associate professor of political science at Vanderbilt
• Kenneth Wong, professor of public policy and education and professor of political science at Vanderbilt

After the lecture series is complete, the lectures will become the basis for a set of teaching materials on how various disciplines look at race and wealth disparity in the United States.

The materials will include chapters for each discipline represented in the research circle. Each chapter will begin with the paper presented in the lecture series and be followed by a selection of edited readings to provide an overview of the work being done in that discipline relative to race and wealth disparity.

This anthology of readings will be used as a teaching tool for an interdisciplinary course on race and wealth disparity to be taught to upper-level and graduate students at Vanderbilt beginning in 2004.

Posted 10/17/02 at 10:00 a.m.