The last few months have turned our world upside down and inside out. A global pandemic, a flailing economy, and a generation-defining series of protests against systemic anti-Black racism and police brutality. These are times of world-altering shifts. During times like these, we often turn to art — in particular, to writers — to their worlds, works, and words. A Summer Session English class taught by Assistant Professor Michael Sawyer is diving into the works of Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, and Toni Morrison. “Books help you take a historical event and put it into the context and experiences of a single person’s life, however fictional that person is. You get to see how systemic racism can shape lives on a microscale,” says Anya Steinberg ’21.
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