The University of Pennsylvania lost two prominent professors who study black culture this week.

2 Scholars of Black Culture Are Leaving Penn
By ELIZABETH QUILL

Elijah Anderson, a sociologist known for his work examining urban inequality, has moved to Yale University, and Michael Eric Dyson, an ordained Baptist minister, author, and commentator, has taken a position at Georgetown University.

Mr. Anderson, 63, had worked at Penn for 32 years. During that time, he became known for his studies of the black experience in Philadelphia, writing such books as Code of the Street: Decency, Violence, and the Moral Life of the Inner City (W.W. Norton, 1999). He also wrote A Place on the Corner (University of Chicago Press, 1978), an examination of life at a Chicago bar and liquor store that is regarded as a sociological classic. Mr. Anderson says he hopes to give urban ethnography a prominent place at Yale.

"I am looking forward to new opportunities," Mr. Anderson said. "It is a new challenge."
There has been some speculation that an unsettled controversy involving allegations of "conceptual plagiarism" of Mr. Anderson's work by a junior faculty member affected his decision to leave. But Mr. Anderson said the dispute did not contribute in any significant way. "That is pretty much in the past," he said. (Penn made a comparable counteroffer, he said, but he still chose to go to Connecticut.)

Mr. Dyson's departure had no slice of controversy, only confusion. Before any official moves were announced, the 48-year-old scholar, who is an authority on hip-hop and many other cultural topics, listed himself as a university professor at Georgetown on a Web site promoting his new book.

Terrence P. Reynolds, chairman of the theology department at Georgetown, said this week that he had heard conversations about Mr. Dyson, but that they were at a level above him. "It may be a complicated matter," Mr. Reynolds said.

Mr. Dyson, who was a professor of humanities and religious studies at Penn, confirmed later that he began at Georgetown on July 1 and would teach English, theology, and African-American studies. As a university professor, he will move between departments.

"I had a true home at Penn," Mr. Dyson said of the university where he worked for five years. "But there is no city more vibrant and teeming with ideas and possibilities to explore than Washington."

Mr. Dyson is the author of numerous books, including Come Hell or High Water (Basic Civitas, 2006), and is set to go on tour to promote his latest book, Know What I Mean? (Basic Civitas, 2007), this month.

Penn's provost, Ronald J. Daniels, declined to comment on the departures beyond a brief e-mail statement acknowledging the contributions of both professors to the university.