ASU Common Read: A Virtual Visit with Michael Eric Dyson
ASU hosts Michael Eric Dyson, author of "Long Time Coming: Reckoning with Race in America" for a virtual visit on Oct. 21, 2021 from 7–8:30 p.m., where he will discuss his work and answer questions from faculty and students. The conversation will be facilitated by two new additions to the ASU faculty: Pulitzer winner Mitchell Jackson, the John O. Whiteman Dean’s Distinguished Professor of English; and Whiting Award winner Safiya Sinclair, an associate professor of English. The event is open and free to the public.
ASU's Writing Programs has selected Dyson's nonfiction book as its 2021-2022 common read.
About the common read
The goal of a common read program is to encourage first-year students to write about pressing social problems that are relevant to ASU’s mission as a public enterprise. By learning to write about such problems as a community, we increase the probability of finding a solution to them. This year, we will write about the future of racial reconciliation.
About the author
In "Long Time Coming," Dyson examines the cultural imperatives of black death, the plague of police brutality, the white theft of black bodies and opportunities, the resort to the often fascist justice of social media instead of the faulty, but far superior justice of the legal system, and the craving for white comfort that has too often cost black people their lives. Ending with a poignant plea for hope, "Long Time Coming" points the way to social redemption; "Long Time Coming" is a necessary guide to help America finally reckon with race.
Dyson is Distinguished University Professor of African American and Diaspora Studies in the College of Arts & Science, and of Ethics and Society, Divinity School and Centennial Professor at Vanderbilt University. He is one of America’s premier public intellectuals and the author of seven New York Times bestsellers. A contributing opinion writer for The New York Times, Dyson is a recipient of two NAACP Image awards and the 2020 Langston Hughes Festival Medallion. Former president Barack Obama has noted: “Everybody who speaks after Michael Eric Dyson pales in comparison.”
This event is hosted by Writing Programs in the Department of English, as part of a university-wide Humanities Week celebration sponsored by The College of Liberal Arts and Sciences at ASU.