Faculty Profile: Davarian Baldwin

Davarian L. Baldwin (On leave)
Paul E. Raether Distinguished Professor of American Studies
Phone: (860) 297-2590	Office Location: Seabury Hall T-402
Send e-mail to Davarian L. Baldwin
Trinity College faculty member since 2009

Degrees:

Ph.D., New York Univ.
M.A., New York Univ.
B.A., Marquette Univ.

Davarian L. Baldwin is a leading urbanist, historian, and cultural critic. His work largely examines the landscape of global cities through the lens of the African Diasporic experience. Baldwin’s related interests include universities and urban development, the racial foundations of academic thought, intellectual and mass culture, Black radical thought and transnational social movements, the politics of heritage tourism, and 20th and 21st Century art, architecture, and urban design.

Baldwin is the author of In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities (Bold Type Books, 2021), Chicago’s New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life (UNC, 2007) and co-editor, with Minkah Makalani, of the essay collection Escape From New York! The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem (Minnesota, 2013). He is currently finishing Land of Darkness: Chicago and the Making of Race in Modern America (Oxford University Press). Baldwin is also developing a digital, video-based, Black Intellectual Oral History (BIOH) project for both archival documentation of important stories and virtual mentorship to younger scholars. In 2019, he was awarded a Logan Nonfiction Writing Fellowship from the Carey Institute for the Global Good. During the 2013 - 2014 academic year, Baldwin held the Ralph H. Metcalfe Distinguished Visiting Chair at Marquette University.

At Trinity, Baldwin's teaching brings together urban and cultural studies, 20th Century U.S. History, and African American Studies. He is also the founding director of the Smart Cities Research Lab housed in the Center for Urban and Global Studies on campus. Baldwin leads professional development workshops for school teachers with the NEH and the organizations Primary Source and Facing History and Ourselves. He also serves as a textbook consultant for McGraw Hill and is currently formulating a video-based learning curriculum for The Great Courses series entitled, How the Great Migration Changed America.

His research, writing, and commentary has been featured in numerous outlets including NBC News, CNN, PBS, SIRIUS XM, The History Channel, NPR, BBC Radio, TIME, Washington Post, The Guardian, The Business Journals, USA Today, and The Daily Beast. His more recent pieces include, "Why We Should Abolish Campus Police," The Chronicle of Higher Education (May 19, 2021); "Higher Education Has a Tax Problem and It's Hurting Local Communities," TIME (April 7, 2021), "Higher Education's Racial Reckoning Reaches Far Beyond Slavery," Washington Post (April 1, 2021), and "What Universities' Growing Power Means for Cities," Next City (March 30, 2021). Baldwin's essay "When Universities Swallow Cities," was the lead article in the "Cities" special issue of Chronicle Review (Chronicle of Higher Education) in 2017.

In addition to teaching and writing, Baldwin sits on the Executive Council of the Society for Historians of the Gilded Age and Progressive Era (SHGAPE). He serves on the Editorial Boards for the Journal of Urban History, The Journal of African American History, and The American Studies Journal. Baldwin is also co-editor of the Urban Life, Landscape, and Policy book series for Temple University Press and was appointed a Distinguished Lecturer for the Organization of American Historians.

curriculum vitae

Publications:

Books

In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities. Bold Type Books (Forthcoming, 2021)
Co-edit with Minkah Makalani. Escape From New York: The New Negro Renaissance beyond Harlem. University of Minnesota Press, 2013.
Chicago's New Negroes: Modernity, the Great Migration, and Black Urban Life. University of North Carolina Press. 2007.

Articles (select)

With Emma Shaw Crane, "Cities, Racialized Poverty, and Infrastructures of Possibility," in Special Issue: New Poverty Politics for Changing Times, Antipode 52:2 (February, 2020)
"'...this wider race consciousness': The Culture and Politics of the New Negro Movement," (German translation) in Barbara Schaefer Ed. Once Upon a Time America: Three Centuries of American Art. Wallraf-Richartz Museum & Fondation Corboud, 2018.
"'1968 was such a pivotal year:' The Art and Activism of Black Power Chicago," in Rebecca Zorach and Marissa Baker Eds. The Time is Now! Art Worlds of Chicago's South Side, 1960-1980, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2018.
"Chicago's 'Concentric Zones': Thinking Through the Material History of an Iconic Map," Margaret Salazer-Porzio and Joan Fragaszy Troyano Eds. Many Voices, One Nation: Material Culture Reflections on Race and Migration in the United States of America. Washington D.C.: Smithsonian Institution Scholarly Press, 2017.
"'It's not the location, it's the institution': Heritage Tourism and the New Politics of Historic Preservation," Buildings and Landscapes 23:2 (Fall, 2016)
"The Great Migration and the Rise of an Urban 'Race Film' Culture," in Barbara Lupack Ed. Early Race Filmmaking in America. New York: Routledge, 2016
"Renaissance Noir: The Renaissance Society and Chicago's Black Renaissance," Centennial: A History of the Renaissance Society. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2015
"Chess Moves on a Checkerboard: Heritage Tourism, University Life, and the New Face(s) of Urban Development," in Adrienne Brown and Valerie Smith Eds. Race and Real Real Estate, New York: Oxford University Press, 2015.
"Making the Black Metropolis: African Americans in Chicago, 1910-1985," African American Communities, London: Adam Matthew Digital Ltd., 2015
"'I will build a Black Empire': The Birth of a Nation and the Specter of the New Negro," The Birth of a Nation 100th Anniversary Forum, The Journal of of the Gilded Age and the Progressive Era 14:4 (October 2015)
"'The 800-Pound Gargoyle': The Long History of Higher Education on Chicago's South Side," American Quarterly 67:1 (March, 2015).
"'Midnight was like day': Strolling Through Archibald Motley's Bronzeville," in Richard Powell Ed. Archibald Motley: Jazz Age Modernist. Durham: Duke University Press, 2014
Baldwin, Davarian L. "From Wisconsin to Egypt and Back Again: A Comment on Bridgette Baldwin's Analysis of the Shadow Work Thesis," Western New England Law Review 34:2 (2012).
Baldwin, Davarian L. "'Our newcomers to the city': The Great Migration and the Making of Modern Mass Culture," in W. Fitzhugh Brundage Ed. Beyond Blackface: African Americans and the Creation of American Popular Culture, 1890-1930. University of North Carolina Press, 2011.
Baldwin, Davarian L. "Black Empires, White Desires: The Spatial Politics of Identity in the Age of Hip Hop," Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noir (1999). Reprinted in Mark Anthony Neal and Murray Forman Eds. That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (Second Edition) Routledge, 2011.
Baldwin, Davarian L. "From the Washtub to the World: Madam C.J. Walker and the Re-creation of Race Womanhood," in the Modern Girl Research Group Ed. The Modern Girl Around the World: Globalization, Modernity, and Consumerism. Duke University Press, 2008.
Baldwin, Davarian L. "Pimps Up, Hoes Down? The Amazing Misadventures of Blackface Masculinity", AmeriQuests Vol. 6, No. 1, (2008), [peer-reviewed ejournal].
Baldwin, Davarian L. "'Culture is a Weapon in Our Struggle for Liberation': The Black Panther Party and the Cultural Politics of Decolonization," in Jama Lazerow and Yohuru Williams Eds. In Search of the Black Panther Party: New Perspectives on a Revolutionary Movement. Duke University Press, 2006.
Baldwin, Davarian L. "Black Belts and Ivory Towers: The Place of Race in U.S. Social Thought, 1892-1948," (2004). Reprinted with new epilogue in Stephen Pfohl, Aimee Van Wagenen, Patricia Arend, Abigail Brooks, and Denise Leckenby Eds. Culture, Power, and History: Studies in Critical Sociology. Brill Publishers, 2006.

Public Writing

"When Universities Swallow Cities," Chronicle Review-The Chronicle of Higher Education (August 4, 2017).
"Ideas in Unexpected Places: Why a Marketplace Intellectual Life Still Matters," Black Perspectives, Blog for African American Intellectual History Society (May 23, 2017)
"'The Mecca was Chicago,'" The Editor's Choice, Blog for Adam Matthew Digital Primary Source Collections (Oct. 1, 2015).
"The Civil Rights Movement," in The Africana Age (2011).
"A King for Our Times", (Oct. 18, 2011) NewBlackMan (blog).

Presentations:

Public Lectures (Select)

Keynote Address: "'Inequality is a Comorbidity!': Mapping the Structures of Racial Disparity in Today's Crisis Cities," Why Racial Equity and Anti-Racism? Forum (Webinar), Community Health Equity Research Institute, University of Buffalo, July 14, 2020.
"The Urban Contours of Racial Disparity Under COVID-19," The Color of Life in a Time of Crisis: Thinking Through Racial Disparity During COVID-19 (Webinar), Center for Social Justice, Western New England School of Law, June 25, 2020.
"Campus Policing as Gentrification," Defund the Police: Police, Race, and Universities (Webinar), M4BL Juneteenth Weekend of Action, Scholars for Social Justice, June 20, 2020.
"'Chicago could be the Vienna of American Fascism': The Political Culture of Black Anti-Fascism before World War II," American and Canadian Studies Centre Seminar, University of Birmingham (UK), March 2