FSU English department hosts Claudia Rankine for reading event
By Erinn Lyden
The Florida State University English department is hosting Claudia Rankine, celebrated and award-winning poet, playwright, and essayist, for a reading and question-and- answer session on Thursday, March 31.
“We are absolutely thrilled that Claudia Rankine—one of the most prominent and celebrated American poets writing today—will be visiting FSU as part of this year's Diversity Reading Initiative,” says English Professor Andrew Epstein, one of the co-hosts for the event, along with Associate Professor John Mac Kilgore. “For this program, each year, faculty in the English department select an important work by a writer of color that will be taught and discussed in many classes and other venues, including reading groups. This year, we chose Rankine's powerful 2020 book Just Us: An American Conversation. We couldn't be more pleased that the culminating event of this year's initiative will be a visit by Rankine herself.”
Just Us is an examination of whiteness, racism, and the possibilities of engaging in uncomfortable conversations about race and justice in contemporary culture. Over the past couple of decades, Epstein says, “Rankine has become one of our moment's most incisive commentators on race and culture, as a poet, playwright, critic, essayist, and public intellectual.”
Rankine is the author of six books, including the groundbreaking 2014 book Citizen: An American Lyric, which has become a defining text in recent national debates about racism and racial violence. Many commentators on American poetry would argue that the boundary-breaking, award-winning book is perhaps the most famous and influential work of poetry of the twenty-first century thus far, Epstein adds.
Claudia Rankine has become one of our moment's most incisive commentators on race and culture, as a poet, playwright, critic, essayist, and public intellectual.
— Andrew Epstein
“We are very happy that students, faculty, and the rest of the FSU and Tallahassee community will have the opportunity to see one of the most important contemporary authors in person,” Epstein says. “We're particularly excited that thanks to the Diversity Reading Initiative our students and the entire English department community will have a rare and amazing opportunity— the chance to read and discuss the work of a fascinating contemporary author and then the opportunity to see and meet with her in person on the FSU campus.”
Epstein adds that he hopes attendees take away “a sense of how poetry and other literary and artistic forms can compel us to think differently about American history and culture, community, and the potential for change.”
English Assistant Professor L. Lamar Wilson will be moderating a Q&A session and informal discussion with Rankine from 10:30 a.m.-noon in the Williams Building Common Room (ground floor, 013).
Rankine’s reading in Dodd Hall Auditorium is from 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. The reading is followed by a book signing. The co-hosts ask that you remain socially distanced and wear a mask if you would like to have your book signed.
The events will also be carried on Zoom.
Link for 10:30 a.m. Q&A/informal discussion
Link to register for Rankine's 4:30 p.m. reading
Erinn Lyden is a junior who is majoring in English-Editing, Writing, and Media, with a minor in Communication and a certificate in Multicultural Marketing Communication.
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