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1. Introduction

[Ken Warren] You can often tell the importance of a piece of work not only by what is said at the moment of publication, but by what you see happening in the years subsequent to that publication, and particularly say in fields that are not directly those fields of the writer.

I work in American literature and one of the fascinating things that I've noticed in canvassing work in early to mid-twentieth century American literature and African American literature over the past several years, has been the growth in prominence of the discussion of the Great Migration. And how much that event has shaped and continues to shape our understanding of the production of black literature, particularly in the twentieth century.

And one of the consistent features of the work that I've seen over the past five to seven years has been a work that gets cited, and that's Jim Grossman's Land of Hope: Chicago, Black Southerners and the Great Migration. And this is a work that gives much more, primarily historical consideration, ______ is a citation and that work has been a remarkable watershed for continuing studies in American, African-American literature in the twentieth century.

That being said, that half of the importance have as an important recent scholarship, one of those rare teachers, Vice-President of Research and Education at the Newberry, the Newberry Library. I know of him as someone who has called over the past couple of years and asked if I would help chair fellowship panels and read through hundreds of fellowship applications. But he really is an important contributor to the intellectual and scholarly _______ Chicago in the American studies and American historical studies throughout the nation.

I've also been involved with Jim in part in the Newberry Library's "Teachers as Scholars" projects and I _______ after I participated in major seminars on a variety of topics, Jim ______ maybe a little more ______ after I finish. But I've been working through that program, to the seminars on ______ renaissance to _______, at the Chicago, Newberry Library at the Newberry and using its immense resources and ____ studies.

So it's my great pleasure, and I think our great fortune today, to have Jim Grossman.

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