Join the Lab and its partners for a performance by poet and legal scholar Reginald Dwayne Betts, followed by a conversation with Eve L. Ewing. This event is CSRPC’s annual public lecture and the closing plenary for “Racial Reckonings & the Future of the Humanities,” the inaugural conference of the Centering Race Consortium.
Reginald Dwayne Betts is a poet, lawyer, and the founding director of the Million Book Project. His books include his latest poetry collection, Felon; the memoir, A Question of Freedom; and two previous collections of poetry, Shahid Reads His Own Palm and Bastards of the Reagan Era, which won the PEN New England Award for poetry. In 2019, Betts won the National Magazine Award in the Essays and Criticism category for “Getting Out,” his New York Times Magazine essay that chronicles his journey from prison to becoming a licensed attorney. He holds an M.F.A. from Warren Wilson College and a J.D. from Yale Law School.
Dwayne’s awards include a Guggenheim Fellowship, NEA Fellowship, Soros Justice Fellowship, Radcliffe Fellowship, Ruth Lily Fellowship, New America Fellowship, and an NAACP Image Award. He has been featured in The New York Times, The New Yorker, and The Washington Post, as well as being interviewed on NPR’s Fresh Air, The Travis Smiley Show, and several other national shows.
Dr. Eve L. Ewing is a sociologist of education and a writer from Chicago. She is the author, most recently, of the poetry collection 1919 and the nonfiction work Ghosts in the Schoolyard: Racism and School Closings on Chicago’s South Side. Her first book, the poetry collection Electric Arches, received awards from the American Library Association and the Poetry Society of America and was named one of the year’s best books by NPR and the Chicago Tribune. She is the co-author (with Nate Marshall) of the play No Blue Memories: The Life of Gwendolyn Brooks. She also currently writes the Champions series for Marvel Comics and previously wrote the acclaimed Ironheart series, as well as other projects.
Ewing is an assistant professor at the University of Chicago Crown Family School of Social Work, Policy, and Practice. Her work has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, The New York Times, and many other venues. Her first book for young readers, Maya and the Robot, will be published by Kokila Books in summer 2021. Currently she is working on her next book, Original Sins: The (Mis)education of Black and Native Children and the Construction of American Racism, which will be published by One World.
Presented in partnership with the Centering Race Consortium, including the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago. This event is supported by the Mellon Foundation.