Tressie McMillan Cottom to Deliver John L. Hatfield '67 Lecture

Join the Lafayette Libraries and Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies for the John L. Hatfield ‘67 lecture featuring award-winning author and public scholar Tressie McMillan Cottom on March 23 at 7 pm via Zoom.  Dr. Cottom’s talk is part of the celebrations honoring the 50th anniversary of coeducation at Lafayette and is open to all.

Cottom's work has been recognized nationally and internationally for the urgency and depth of her incisive critical analysis of technology, higher education, class, race, and gender. In 2019, Cottom released THICK: and Other Essays, a collection which has been described as "essential," and the Chicago Tribune calls Cottom, "the author you need to read now." Dorothy Roberts compares reading it to "holding a mirror to your soul and to that of America." Thick was the winner of the Brooklyn Public Library Literary Price and was a finalist for the 2019 National Book Award. Cottom serves on dozens of academic and philanthropic boards and publishes widely on issues of inequality, work, higher education, and technology. She is an associate professor in the School of Information and Library Science at the University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill and Senior Research Fellow at the Center for Information, Technology, and Public Life (UNC). Cottom is a recent recipient of the  Macarthur genius grant , and  co-hosts Hear to Slay with Roxane Gay, a podcast with an intersectional perspective on celebrity, culture, politics, art, life, love, and more.

A Q&A will follow the talk. Please register for the event here. Access the lecture on March 23, 2021 here. (Preregistration is not required, but registration allows us to send you a reminder ahead of time including the link for connecting.)

To learn more about Dr. Cottom, click here.  

Dr. Cottom’s lecture is co-sponsored by the Africana Studies department and the DEI Council. The Hatfield Lecture series is funded by the generous gift of John L. Hatfield ‘67.