Farah Jasmine Griffin is one of the top African-Americanists in the country. A professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia, she received her B.A. from Harvard (1985) and her Ph.D. from Yale (1992). Professor Griffin’s major fields of interest are African-American literature, music, history and politics. She is the author of Who Set You Flowin,'?: The African- American Migration Narrative, and the co-editor of Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African American Travel Writing and of Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies. Her most recent book, If You Can’t Be Free Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday, was published in 2001.