One of the United States' most provocative public intellectuals, Dr. Cornel West is a philosopher, social critic, political activist, and a champion for racial justice through the traditions of the black Church, progressive politics, and jazz. He has written and edited over thirty books, including the classics Race Matters and Democracy Matters. He is a radio host; has appeared in two Matrix films; has made several spoken words and hip hop albums; has held professorships at Harvard, Princeton, and Yale, and currently is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. He has been called one of the world's top 50 thinkers for the COVID-19 age. He is, as he describes himself, "a bluesman in the life of the mind, a jazzman in the world of ideas, forever on the move."
Join Malcolm Clemens Young online at the final Forum of the Fall season in a conversation with Dr. West about democracy, race, religion, and living & loving out loud.
You can help us bring the arts to life at Grace with a gift today to The Forum. Learn all the many ways to give at gracecathedral.org/give. Thank you!
Dr. Cornel West, affectionately known to many as Brother West, is the Dietrich Bonhoeffer Chair at Union Theological Seminary. Dr. West teaches on the works of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, as well as courses in Philosophy of Religion, African American Critical Thought, and a wide range of subjects – including but by no means limited to, the classics, philosophy, politics, cultural theory, literature, and music. He has a passion to communicate to a vast variety of publics in order to keep alive the legacy of Martin Luther King, Jr. – a legacy of telling the truth and bearing witness to love and justice. Dr. West is the former Professor of the Practice of Public Philosophy at Harvard University and Professor Emeritus at Princeton University. Cornel West graduated Magna Cum Laude from Harvard in three years and obtained his M.A. and Ph.D. in Philosophy at Princeton. He has written 20 books and has edited 13. He is best known for his classics, Race Matters and Democracy Matters, and for his memoir, Brother West: Living and Loving Out Loud. His most recent book, Black Prophetic Fire, offers an unflinching look at nineteenth and twentieth-century African American leaders and their visionary legacies. Dr. West has partnered with MasterClass.com to provide teachings on several influential courses including a class with Pharrell Williams on Empathy, MasterClass's first-ever multi-instructor class on Black History, Black Freedom & Black Love, as well as Dr. West's standalone class on Philosophy. Visit www.cornelwest.com and click the MasterClass banner to learn more.
The Very Rev. Dr. Malcolm Clemens Young is the dean of Grace Cathedral. He is the author of The Spiritual Journal of Henry David Thoreau and The Invisible Hand in Wilderness: Economics, Ecology, and God, and is a regular contributor on religion to the Huffington Post and San Francisco Examiner.
The Forum is a series of stimulating conversations about faith and ethics in relation to the important issues of our day. We invite inspiring and illustrious people to sit down for a real conversation with the Forum's host and with you. Our guests range from artists, inventors and philosophers to pop culturists and elected officials, but the point of The Forum is singular: civil, sophisticated discourse that engages minds and hearts to think in new ways about the world. More about Grace Forum Online
You can help us bring the arts to life at Grace with a gift today to The Forum. Learn all the many ways to give at gracecathedral.org/give. Thank you!
