Claudia Rankine and the Making of Citizen
Event details
In this exclusive AlumniTALK, author Claudia Rankine SOA'93 will read excerpts from and discuss her bestselling book Citizen: An American Lyric, which uses poetry, essay, cultural criticism and visual images to explore what it means to be an American citizen in a “post-racial” society.
Citizen is a vital work for our time. Don't miss the unique opportunity to engage in this urgent conversation around race and visibility with one of today's most significant and influential writers.
Hosted in partnership with the Columbia College Alumni Association (CCAA).
About Claudia Rankine SOA'93
Recipient of the 2016 MacArthur Fellowship, Claudia Rankine is the author of five collections of poetry including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely; two plays including Provenance of Beauty: A South Bronx Travelogue; and is the editor of several anthologies including The Racial Imaginary: Writers on Race in the Life of the Mind. She also co-produces a video series, “The Situation,” alongside John Lucas, and is the founder of the Open Letter Project: Race and the Creative Imagination. Among her numerous awards and honors, Rankine is the recipient of the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize and fellowships from the Lannan Foundation and the National Endowment of the Arts.
Read more about Claudia Rankine.
About Citizen: An American Lyric
A defining text for our time, Citizen was the winner of the 2015 Forward Prize for Best Collection, the National Book Critics Circle Award for Poetry, the NAACP Image Award, the PEN Open Book Award, and the LA Times Book Award for poetry. Citizen was nominated for the Hurston/Wright 2015 Legacy Award, was a finalist for the 2014 National Book Award, and was selected as an NPR Best Book of 2014, who stated: “This collection examines everyday encounters with racism in the second person, forcing the reader—regardless of identity—to engage a narrative haunted by the deaths of Michael Brown, Trayvon Martin, and Renisha McBride.” Citizen is also the only poetry book to be a New York Times bestseller in the nonfiction category.
This year, Citizen was assigned as summer reading to all incoming first year students at the College as part of their Literature Humanities course.
For even more Citizen...
Register for the Core Conversations virtual bookclub! This session, alumni will discuss Citizen guided by Tyrone Palmer, a Lecturer in the Department of African American and African Diaspora Studies.
Virtual; Zoom link provided upon registration.
