Marian Miner Cook
Athenaeum

A distinctive
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cultural life at CMC

 

Against the Loveless World: To Be Raced in America

Thu, March 2, 2017
Dinner Program
Ayana Mathis

Does our collective American history assign race to some groups, Blacks, Latinos, people of color of various extractions, while assigning a kind of racial neutrality to whiteness? Using James Baldwin's The Fire Next Time, and her own novel, The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, Ayana Mathis will raise and answer questions about how notions of being raced and un-raced manifest historically and contemporarily; and how they impact every aspect of the American experience, from the intimacy of our hearts and minds to the law that govern us.

 

Ayana Mathis is a graduate of the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a recipient of the 2014-15 New York Public Library's Cullman Center Fellowship. The Twelve Tribes of Hattie, her first novel, was a New York Times Bestseller, a 2013 New York Times Notable Book of the Year, an NPR Best Books of 2013, and was chosen by Oprah Winfrey as the second selection for Oprah's Book Club 2.0. Mathis taught creative writing at The Writer's Foundry MFA Program at St. Joseph's College, Brooklyn. She is an assistant professor of English and Creative Writing at the Iowa Writers' Workshop.

Ms. Mathis' Athenaeum talk is co-sponsored by the Center for Writing and Public Discourse.

Photo credit: Elena Seibert

Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum

Claremont McKenna College
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Claremont, CA 91711

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