Crystal M. Fleming

Graduate Student in Sociology

Biographical Note

Crystal M. Fleming is a doctoral candidate in the Department of Sociology, a Fellow at the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs and a graduate student affilliate at the Center for European Studies at Harvard University. Fleming's research examines issues relating to cultural sociology, comparative race and the public sphere, with a special focus on France and the United States. 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 analyzing the commemoration of the transatlantic slave trade in contemporary France.

Born in Tennessee and raised near Philadelphia, Fleming graduated magna cum laude from Wellesley College with degrees in French and Sociology. Her work has been published in the Du Bois Review, Poetics and the African American National Biography. In addition to her dissertation research, Fleming has served as an intern at UNESCO for the "Slave Route Project" and is currently a member of two interrelated research teams with Michèle Lamont, including the NSF-funded "African American Responses to Racism and Discrimination", as well as "A Comparative Study of Responses to Discrimination by Stigmatized Groups", funded by the Weatherhead Center.

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.

From 2007 until summer 2009, Fleming was a visiting student at Sciences Po (Paris). She has appeared regularly in the French media, including such outlets as Canal+, TF1, France24, France-O, BFM TV, and Public Senat, to discuss issues related to politics, race, discrimination and anti-racism in France and the United States.

10/06/2009

Curriculum Vitae

Research Interests: Cultural Sociology, Slavery, Comparative Race and Ethnicity, Collective Identity, Social Memory, Cultural Trauma, Anti-Racism, Stigma

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

Teaching Experience
Sociology 99	Senior Thesis Workshop	Teaching Fellow
Sociology 97	Sophomore Tutorial	Lecturer

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

Papers available in Portable Document Format (PDF)

"Black Cultural Capitalists: African-American Elites and the Organization of the Arts in Early Twentieth Century Boston"	Fleming, Crystal and Lorraine Roses	2007
"Everyday Antiracism: Competence and Religion in the Cultural Repertoire of the African American Elite"	Lamont, Michele and Crystal Fleming	2005

Presentations and Publications

"Ladner, Joyce"

African American National Biography. Ed. Henry Louis and Evelyn Brooks Higganbotham. Oxford African American Studies Center.

2008

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, Horton-Hallowell Graduate Fellowship (Wellesley College Center for Work and Service), Justice, Economics and Welfare Fellowship (Weatherhead Center for International Affairs)