Race + IP was first organized in 2017, as a collaborative effort between Anjali Vats, Deidré Keller, Jessica Silbey, and Amit Basole. The conference endeavors to foster interdisciplinary conversations about race and intellectual property, as well as aid in building community around the subject. For more information about the history of the conference and past events, see www.raceipconference.org.
This event was organized by Deidré Keller, in collaboration with Anjali Vats.
Deidré A. Keller
Dean and Professor of Law
FAMU College of Law
Deidré A. Keller is the dean of the Florida A&M University (FAMU) College of Law in Orlando, Florida. Prior to joining FAMU Law, she was the Associate Dean for Academic Affairs at the Ohio Northern University Claude W. Pettit College of Law where she taught for ten years. Dean Keller’s teaching experience includes Property, Intellectual Property, Law & Literature, Internet Law, Legal Problem Solving & Analysis, Estates, Wills, and Trusts, and The Legal History of Montgomery, Alabama. Dean Keller writes at the intersections of intellectual property, personhood theory, critical race theory, and the Constitution. Prior to teaching, Keller practiced law in Atlanta, Georgia, with the firms of Sutherland, Asbill and Brennan, LLP and Seyfarth Shaw, LLP. She specialized in intellectual property counseling and procurement, focusing on trademarks and copyrights.
Anjali Vats
Associate Professor of Communication and African and African Diaspora Studies and Associate Professor of Law (by courtesy)
Boston College
Anjali Vats is Associate Professor of Communication and African and African Diaspora Studies at Boston College and Associate Professor of Law at Boston College Law School (by courtesy). She is interested in issues related to race, law, communication, and popular culture, with particular focus on intellectual property. Her book, The Color of Creatorship: Intellectual Property, Race and the Making of Americans (Stanford UP, 2020), examines the relationship between copyright, patent, and trademark law, race, and national identity formation. Vats has published in journals and law reviews, including the Quarterly Journal of Speech, Communication and Critical/Cultural Studies, Communication, Culture & Critique, and the Cardozo Arts & Entertainment Law Journal. In 2016-2017, as an AAUW Postdoctoral Fellow, Vats taught at UC Davis School of Law. She was previously a faculty member in the Department of Communication and Culture at Indiana University, where she was affiliated with the Center for Intellectual Property Research at the Maurer School of Law. Before becoming a professor, Vats served as law clerk to the now retired Chief Justice A. William Maupin of the Supreme Court of Nevada.