I won't tell you that it's gonna be okay.

I won't tell you that it's going to be okay.

And welcome to another episode of the Boccari Sellers podcast.

Today we have a great author and scholar and academic and

you know all of those things which make her mentally smarter than I and

we're gonna have a great conversation about all the things that she's doing

particularly about one of my favorite people in the world but the book of James.

How are you doing? Valerie Babb. I am doing fine, Bakari. It is a pleasure to meet and speak with you.

No, it's an honor.

It is an honor.

So my show is unique because we ask all of our guests the same first question.

And we like our guests to walk us through the arc of their career and you've had a story career as both an author and an academic.

Walk us through your career arc and talk to us about your focus of your scholarship at Emory.

Well, I am the proud product of public education, so I always hold that deep to my heart.

And I think I kind of stumbled into this profession a little bit through a love of reading and a love of talking about books.

So I wasn't on track to be your traditional academic. I really didn't even know that was a feel, but I did like reading. I did like talking to people about books. And then the minute I discovered African American literature and content.

It was all done.

So much made sense to me and I felt I had to share this.

So that's essentially how I got into education.

And I have been at three very different universities. I started my career at Georgetown University, received tenure in promotion there, then went to the University of Georgia which is a very different

southern public institution and finally now I am at Emory so I've had the benefit of

doing this from a variety of perspectives.

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