Emory University Professor Emerita Frances Smith Foster accepted the Brandeis-funded Joseph B. and Toby Gittler Prize last Tuesday before sharing her own excerpts from her personal life as well as insights from her research about African-American literature and the lives of slaves in the antebellum period.

The lecture, titled "Conjuring Culture and Other Extracurricular Activities," focused on topics in African-American Studies and Women's Studies, such as love and relationships in early African-American culture, which is the subject of one of her books.

According to its website, the Gittler Prize is awarded every year to scholars who have made "outstanding and lasting scholarly contributions to racial, ethnic and/or religious relations." The award consists of $25,000 and a medal, which is presented to recipients when they deliver a lecture at the University.

After receiving the medal from University President Frederick Lawrence, Foster said she was "stunned" to learn she had been selected as a co-recipient and called herself an "accidental academic activist." Launching into her life background, she said that she had learned to read at three years old and graduated college qualified to teach high school English. However, Foster said that she noticed the absence of African-American and female writers from her university's curricula.

Foster said she grew up attending a segregated school, which took students on a field trip every two weeks to a library that included works by African Americans. Growing up, Foster said, she had read these works and grew close to literature, especially these works written by African Americans.

Foster also reflected on the life and work of Joseph B. Gittler and read an excerpt from one of his books, Man and His Prejudices. The passage, according to a Dec. 1 BrandeisNOW press release about the event, is about the "pervasiveness of ethnic and racial bias."

"We live in a world increasingly divided by intransigent ethnocentrism cultured by prejudice," said Foster, where ethnic and racial biases are more difficult to combat.

Transitioning into her own work, Foster, who wanted to "demonstrate something about the magic and power of language," explained the title of her lecture.

She noted that many people think of the trickery of magic when they think of the word conjure, yet the etymology of the word denotes a group of individuals making a pledge together. She also referred to the word culture as both a "refinement" of mind, taste and the arts, as well as "distinctive aspects" of a society. She talked about consumer culture, which encourages society to "idolize [the] new when often [society has not] fully realized or utilized the old."

Foster urged her audience to remember that "we exist simultaneously in many cultures at once, and that's not schizophrenia, that's reality."

Focusing on her work, Foster mentioned examples of myths about African-American culture that she has deconstructed. For example, in a book about love and marriage in early African-American culture, Foster dispelled the notion that physical distance between couples ultimately ended relationships and that prohibition of marriage between slaves actually prevented them from forming committed romantic relationships with each other.

"You have conjured up Joseph Gittler for us, in a most moving and appropriate way, in a way that is most in tradition of this giving of this prize at Brandeis," said Lawrence to Foster after her lecture.

Clayborne Carson of Stanford University, the other co-recipient of the Gittler Prize, will give a lecture focusing on the significance of the life and ideas of Dr. Martin Luther King, according to Carson in a Nov. 7 Justice article. He is scheduled to speak Feb. 13 and 14, 2012.

—Andrew Wingens contributed reporting.