Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies. She is the author or editor of eight books including Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative (Oxford, 1995), If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press, 2001), and Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (Basic Books, 2013); and Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (W.W. Norton, 2021). Her most recent work is In Search of a Beautiful Freedom: _New and Selected Essays _(W,W Norton, 2023).