Crystal M. Fleming

Graduate Student in Sociology

Biographical Note

Crystal M. Fleming is a Ford Foundation fellow and a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology. A specialist of cultural sociology, her research examines issues relating to race, ethnicity, identity, democracy and the public sphere. Her masters thesis examined the social and political discourse of African American slam poets in predominately black and predominately white venues. For her dissertation, Fleming is comparatively analyzing how the history of the transatlantic slave trade is commemorated in France and the United States.

Born in Tennessee and raised near Philadelphia, Fleming graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College with degrees in French and Sociology and attended the Universite de Provence in France. With Michèle Lamont, she is the co-author of "Everyday Anti-Racism: Competence and Religion in the Cultural Repertoire of the African-American Elite and Working Class" (Du Bois Review, 2005). Her latest publication, with Lorraine Roses, (Poetics, 2007) analyzes how Black elites in Boston organized the arts during the 1920's and, in so doing, negotiated Eurocentric and Afrocentric aesthetic sensibilities. Fleming is also a member of Lamont's NSF-funded Comparative Antiracism Project, assessing how minorities in varying national contexts interpret and respond to discrimination. Additionally, she is a Graduate Student Affiliate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University.

From 2006 until 2007, Fleming was President of the Graduate Student Council of the Graduate School of Arts Sciences, representing over 50 Harvard Ph.D. programs. She is the co-founder and coordinator of the first University-Wide Day of Service at Harvard University and a 2007 recipient of a Certificate of Distinction in Teaching.

Fleming has recently served as a political analyst, principally in the French press, and has appeared on such outlets as France24, France-O, BFM TV, and Public Senat. She is available for media requests and speaking engagements related to race, politics, and social problems in France and the U.S. Inquiries should be directed via email.

**Fleming is currently a Visiting Scholar at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques in Paris, France**

10/06/2008

Research Interests

Slavery, Comparative Ethnicity, Collective Identity, Social Memory, Cultural Trauma, Symbolic Boundaries, Anti-Racism, Stigma

Previous Degrees

A.M., Harvard University, 2007; B.A., Wellesley College, 2004

Qualifying Paper Title

Poetry, Politics and the Public Sphere: How Race Structures Discourse in Spoken Word Venues

Presentations and Publications

Miscellaneous Additional Information

Optional Sections on General Exams

Race/Ethnicity and Culture

Grants Received

Ford Foundation Predoctoral Fellowship, Center for European Studies Graduate Research Fellowship, Dissertation Proposal Development Fellowship (SSRC), Sciences-Po Exchange Fellowship (Harvard University and L'Institut d'Etudes Politiques), Mellon Mays Fellowship (SSRC), Woodrow Wilson Summer Research Grant, GSAS Graduate Student Council Summer Research Grant, Wellesley College Graduate Research Grant (Center for Work and Service)

Contact

617-496-3443 (Phone)
617-496-5794 (FAX)

511 William James Hall
33 Kirkland Street
Cambridge, MA 02138