OCTOBER 5- Adriane Lentz-Smith

THE WORLD’S EXPERIENCE

October 5, 2010 at 4 pm in the Royall Room of the UNC Alumni Center

In “The World’s Experience,” Adriane Lentz-Smith will weave the black freedom struggle into the story of the United States’ emergence as a world power. Tracking biographies of activists and veterans of World War I, Lentz-Smith will discuss how they used the international arena as a staging ground in their fight against white supremacy.

Adriane Lentz-Smith is the Andrew W. Mellon Assistant Professor of History at Duke University.   Her research interests lie in African American history and international history broadly defined. Her most recent book is Freedom Struggles: African Americans and World War I (Harvard University Press, 2009), which looks at the black freedom struggle in the World War I years, with a particular focus on manhood, citizenship claims, and the international experience. She is especially interested in how African Americans lay claim to the American nation even as they explored identities that extended beyond geographic boundaries.