Page 5 - Common Reading News Today

April 27, 2021 Melissa Parkhurst will present a Common Reading talk on “Song Gives Birth to Struggle: Music and the Anti-Apartheid Movement in South Africa” at noon on Wednesday, April 28. Parkhurst, a faculty member in the WSU School of Music and the 2021 awardee of the WSU Faculty Diversity Award, will use examples from several South African music traditions to explore the ways in which music sheds light on the indigenous cultures and the process of colonialism and post colonialism. Thes...

April 12, 2021 The WSU Common Reading Program has announced the 2021-22 book to be used by first-year and other students in classes and beyond is Tales of Two Americas: Stories of Inequality in a Divided Nation, edited by John Freeman. By Beverly Makhani Division of Academic Engagement and Student Achievement (DAESA) The Washington State University Common Reading Program has announced the 2021-22 book to be used by first-year and other students in classes and beyond is Tales of Two Americas: S...

March 11, 2021 Thursday, March 25, 7 p.m. (PST) The history of racial disparities in the United States is long and deeply rooted. The Black Lives Matter mobilizations last summer reminded us of the explosive nature of racial mistreatment around law enforcement. In the wake of BLM, cities, counties, and states are trying to address the issue in a variety of ways. Please join Dr. Luis Fernandez (Criminal Justice and Criminology, Northern Arizona University) as he talks with us about the basic str...

March 2, 2021 Communications professor Alex Tan will present a Common Reading talk at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, March 3.  His presentation, “What Communication Science and Trevor Noah Can Tell Us about Racism” will explore the cultural origins of racism and how media, visual images, and language activate unconscious racism. Tan’s most recent book, Who is Racist: Why Racism Matters (Cognella Press, January 2021), provides readers with tools and information to understand and combat racism. Dra...

February 9, 2021 Harvard scholar Anthony Jack will present “The Privileged Poor: How Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students” this evening at 6 p.m. The talk, hosted as a collaborative event by the MLK and Common Reading programs, is the second of three keynote events to promote discussion of ideas related to this year’s Common Reading Born a Crime. Jack’s research has earned numerous awards and has been featured in the New York Times, The Atlantic, The National Review, NPR and oth...

February 5, 2021 The MLK and Common Reading Programs invite you to attend the keynote presentation by Harvard scholar Anthony Jack who will present “The Privileged Poor: How Colleges are Failing Disadvantaged Students” at 6 p.m. on Tuesday, February 9.  Jack’s 2019 book on this topic was described by the Washington Post as breaking “new ground on social and educational questions of great import.” This talk is the second of three keynote events that are collaborative efforts by the ML...

February 4, 2021 English faculty member DJ Lee will present “How Not to Be the Hero of Your Own Story: The #1 Rule of Memoir Writing” as part of the Common Reading Faculty Lecture Series. Drawing on this year’s Common Reading text, Trevor Noah’s Born a Crime, and other successful memoirs, Lee will offer strategies for how to tell your own story honestly while creating a genuine self your reader can relate to. Lee also brings her own experience writing memoir, including her recently pub...

WSU’s Martin Luther King Jr. and Common Reading programs hosted an event Thursday, featuring a well-known activist.  Activist Bree Newsome Bass said she grew up in a diverse area of Columbia, Maryland. The area had mixed-income housing and both her parents were teachers.  “When I was growing up, my mom in particular, her work really focused on disparities in education,” she said. Newsome Bass  said she grew up with an awareness of the inequality that is present in education. She becam...

January 22, 2021 By Maegan Murray, WSU Tri‑Cities Washington State University Tri‑Cities will host a free seminar discussion on exclusion and segregation in the mid-Columbia region on Tuesday, Jan. 26, as part of the WSU Common Reading Program. This event, which takes place from 4–5:30 p.m. online, coincides with the launch of the third book in the “Hanford Histories” series that documents historical accounts and realities of the Hanford Site and surrounding regional area. Both the...