High-Profile Black Political Scientist to Lead New Center on Race, Gender and Politics in the South
by Jamal Eric Watson , January 24, 2011
Dr. Melissa Harris-Perry, the witty Black political scientist who has developed a loyal following as a television pundit on MSNBC and a columnist for The Nation,has decided to leave her teaching post at Princeton University to join the faculty at Tulane University, where she will head up a new center focused on race, gender and politics in the South.
The 37-year-old Harris-Perry held a joint appointment in Princeton’s political science and African-American studies departments and will begin at Tulane in the fall. Her chief responsibility will be to develop a center to critically examine the role of progressive politics and the intersection of race, religion and gender in the South.
Harris-Perry, who received her doctorate from Duke University, was recruited to Princeton from the University of Chicago as a tenured associate professor a