A Conversation with Claudia Rankine

Join us for an inspiring conversation featuring renowned poet, playwright, educator, and multimedia artist, Claudia Rankine, and Brown University Professor of English, Kevin Quashie, as they explore themes of race, social justice, and the written word.  This hybrid event sponsored by the Center for the Study of Race and Ethnicity in America (CSREA) and the Cogut Institute for the Humanities at Brown University is a discussion designed to deepen academic inquiry into race and the humanities. Claudia Rankine Claudia Rankine is the author of five books of poetry, including Citizen: An American Lyric and Don’t Let Me Be Lonely: An American Lyric, three plays including HELP and The White Card, as well as numerous video collaborations. Her recent collection of essays, Just Us: An American Conversation, was published by Graywolf Press in 2020. In 2016, Rankine co-founded The Racial Imaginary Institute (TRII). Kevin Quashie Kevin Quashie teaches black cultural and literary studies and is a professor in the department of English at Brown University. Primarily, he focuses on black feminism, queer studies, and aesthetics, especially poetics. He is the author or editor of four books, most recently The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture (2012) and Black Aliveness, or A Poetics of Being (2021). Currently, he is thinking about literary criticism as a form of estrangement and consolation.