Arlin Hill
When Arlin Hill worked as a marketing consultant for Universal Music Group a few years ago, he got to see the vast influence that various record companies have on society.
That, coupled with courses he took as a graduate student at USC, is one of the many things that got him thinking about the role that culture plays in shaping how people in a particular society see themselves and, ultimately, how they
behave.
“When we start to accept certain things, how does that coalesce in a certain set of behavioral patterns?” Hill says when explaining the focus of his research. “How do I behave now that I’ve accepted that I’m this?”
Such are the questions that Hill is exploring in his fourth year as a Ph.D. student in Africana studies at Brown University.
Hill’s mentors say he is poised to transform the way Black society views itself within a broader society with a legacy of racial oppression.
“Arlin is a brilliant thinker who is driven by care and love for Black people and a deep desire to see them thrive,” says Dr. Ainsley LeSure, the Richard and Edna Salomon Assistant Professor of Political Science and assistant professor of Africana studies at Brown University. LeSure is on Hill’s dissertation committee.
