Dean's Distinguished Lecture Series

Farah Jasmine Griffin, PhD, is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature, Professor of African American and African Diaspora Studies, and was the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University. Professor Griffin received her BA from Harvard and her PhD in American Studies from Yale.   

Professor Griffin is the author of “Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative”(Oxford, 1995), “Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford Connecticut, 1854-1868” (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), and “If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday” (Free Press, 2001). She is co-author, with Salim Washington, of “Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever” (Thomas Dunne, 2008). She also is the author of “Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II,” published by Basic Books in 2013. Professor Griffin collaborated with composer and pianist Geri Allen and director and actor S. Epatha Merkerson on two theatrical projects for which she wrote the books. The first, “Geri Allen and Friends Celebrate the Great Jazz Women of the Apollo,” with Lizz Wright, Dianne Reeves, Teri Lyne Carrington, and others, premiered on the main stage of the Apollo Theater in May 2013. The second, “A Conversation with Mary Lou,” featuring vocalist Carmen Lundy, premiered at Harlem Stage in March 2014 and was performed at the Kennedy Center in May 2016.  

Her forthcoming book, “Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature,” will be published by W.W. Norton in September 2021.