William Jelani Cobb, associate professor of History and Director of the Africana Studies Institute at the University of Connecticut, is this year’s El-Kati Distinguished Lectureship Series keynote speaker. His talk is titled, “The Half-Life of Freedom: Race and Justice in America Today.” Cobb specializes in post-Civil War African American history, 20th-century American politics and the history of the Cold War. Cobb is the author of The Substance of Hope: Barack Obama & the Paradox of Progress (Bloomsbury 2010), and To The Break of Dawn: A Freestyle on the Hip Hop Aesthetic (NYU Press 2007) which was a finalist for the National Award for Arts Writing. He is a recipient of fellowships from the Fulbright and Ford Foundations.