Dr. Kevin Michael Fosters describes his professional identity “as being in action and being a scholar whose scholarship had become connected to broader concerns.” (Photo courtesy of Kevin Michael Foster)
“As a socially conservative Black man, my father put a high value on presenting yourself well, being able to have a sharp analysis of what’s going on around you and being well read,” he says.
As an associate professor at The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin), Foster has focused much of his life’s work on making an impact on the lives of young people, so they can, in turn, help to tackle some of society’s toughest issues.
“Some people have the privilege of having knowledge for knowledge’s sake, which is a wonderful thing,” says Foster. “But the reality is that for millions of people across the world — Black people in the U.S. in particular — our circumstances are absolutely dire. And when many of us make it into the middle class, I don’t think they get how bad things are for literally millions of people.”
He spent his undergrad years at the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. As a member of the wrestling team, Foster’s first three years were focused on sports. Academically, he took to anthropology.
“I had a dynamic professor who was an anthropologist,” Foster says. “ … [And I enjoyed] reading Du Bois, Zora Neale Hurston, St. Clair Drake — generations of Black thinkers who were anthropologists, and, I said, ‘This is a pretty cool way to go.’”
In 1991, he received a bachelor’s degree in economics and anthropology. Foster went on to UT Austin, with the intention of studying African-derived religion in the Americas.
