A keynote address by Imani Perry completes the John Rhoden Catalogue Symposium on February 10, 2024. Perry is an American interdisciplinary scholar, winner of a 2023 MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, and the 2022 National Book Prize for Nonfiction for her book, "South to America: A Journey Below the Mason-Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation" (2022). The catalogue, "Determined To Be: The Sculpture of John Rhoden" (2023, Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine Arts), accompanies the first comprehensive retrospective of twentieth century African American sculptor, John Rhoden (1916-2001), curated by Dr. Brittany Webb, the Evelyn and Will Kaplan Curator of Twentieth Century Art and the John Rhoden Collection.

Imani Perry is an interdisciplinary scholar and writer giving fresh context to African American social conditions and experiences along dimensions of race, gender, and politics.