Allison Blakely

In residence Spring 2008

Professor of European and Comparative History

Boston University, Boston, Massachusetts

Address: 104 Mt. Auburn Street, Floor 3R

Telephone:  617.384.8348

Email: ablakely@bu.edu

Biography

Allison Blakely is Professor of European and Comparative History at Boston University, since 2001, having formerly taught for thirty years at Howard University. He received his B.A. from the University of Oregon, and his M.A. and Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. He is the author of Blacks in the Dutch World: the Evolution of Racial Imagery in a Modern Society (Indiana University Press, 1994); Russia and the Negro: Blacks in Russian History and Thought (Howard University Press, 1986 - a winner of an American Book Award in 1988); several articles on Russian populism; and others on various European aspects of the Black Diaspora. His interest in comparative history has centered on comparative populism and on the historical evolution of color prejudice. His current main project is an overview of the history of Blacks in modern Europe. Among the awards he has received are Woodrow Wilson, Mellon, Fulbright-Hays, and Ford Foundation Fellowships. He is President of the Phi Beta Kappa Society (2006-2009) and serves as consulting editor of its journal, The American Scholar.

Project

“The Emergence of Afro-Europe”

The black population in Europe is finally achieving a size and visibility in several countries that invites comparison with the involuntary definition of community that shaped the concept of African-American among the descendants of enslaved Africans in North America; and a “Black” identity is being forced by circumstances upon even those individuals and groups that would prefer it to be otherwise. My main objective in this project is to complete an interpretive book providing a broad historical perspective to inform the thought and discussion now mounting regarding this aspect of the much larger new immigration reshaping European societies. My residence at the Du Bois Institute will afford me the opportunity to advance the writing phase of the project.