Edmund T. Gordon Papers

Edmund T. Gordon is the founding chair of the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies, Professor of African and African Diaspora Studies, inaugural Vice Provost for Diversity, and Executive Director of the Contextualization and Commemoration Initiative at The University of Texas at Austin (UT).

Born in New York City, New York, to Edmund W. and Susan G. Gordon, Gordon earned his B.A. in from Swarthmore College in Sociology-Anthropology with a minor in Biology. He went on to receive his M.A. and Doctorate in Social Anthropology from Stanford University, and his M.A. in Marine Sciences from the University of Miami.

As an activist and scholar, Gordon’s work focuses on power and social transformation in the Black Diaspora. His teaching and research interests include power and identity in the African Diaspora, critical race and gender theory, and the racial economy of space and resources. Gordon is the author of Disparate Diasporas: Identity and Politics in an African-Nicaraguan Community (1998 UT Press), along with numerous publications that have appeared nationally and internationally.

Gordon joined the faculty at UT in 1989 as an assistant professor in the Department of Anthropology. He was the first Black person to be hired by the department, and the first to develop courses on the African Diaspora in the Americas. With funding from the Rockefeller Foundation, Gordon developed the African Diaspora Program in the Department of Anthropology. He also expanded the Center for African and African American Studies while acting as director from 2001-2008. In 2007-2008, his service included Associate Vice President in the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement. Under Gordon’s leadership, the Department of African and African Diaspora Studies was founded in 2010, and he served as director from 2010-2017. From 2017-2021, Gordon was appointed as UT’s inaugural Vice Provost for Diversity. In addition to his numerous leadership roles, Gordon developed the Racial Geography Tour of UT’s campus, and was elected to the Austin Independent School District’s Board of Trustees from 2015-2018. Gordon is a recipient of UT’s highest honors: a Presidential Citation, the Pro Bene Meritis award from the College of Liberal Arts, and the Civitatis Award.