Jelani Cobb: Race, Populism and Politics

Jelani Cobb is the current A.M. Rosenthal Writer-in-Residence at the Shorenstein Center. He is the Ira A. Lipman Professor of Journalism at Columbia University and a staff writer for The New Yorker, where he writes about race, politics, history, and culture. Previously, Cobb was Associate Professor of History and Director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut where he specialized in post-Civil War African American history, 20th century American politics and Cold War history. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright and Ford Foundations, and winner of the 2015 Sidney Hillman Award for Opinion and Analysis. Cobb is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama and the Paradox of Progress, To the Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic, and The Devil and Dave Chappelle and Other Essays.