Jia Tolentino, "Against Optimization" - 2023 Hatfield Lecture

The Lafayette College Libraries will welcome award-winning author Jia Tolentino to campus as the 2023 Hatfield Lecturer on February 22, 2023. 

Jia Tolentino is a staff writer at the New Yorker and the author of the essay collection Trick Mirror. Formerly, she was the deputy editor at Jezebel and a contributing editor at the Hairpin. She grew up in Texas, received her undergraduate degree at the University of Virginia, and got her MFA in fiction from the University of Michigan. In 2020, she received a Whiting Award as well as the Jeannette Haien Ballard Prize. Her work has also appeared in the New York Times Magazine and Pitchfork, among other places. Trick Mirror, published in 2019, was an instant New York Times bestseller and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle’s John Leonard Prize for Best First Book and the PEN America Diamondstein-Spielvogel Award for the Art of the Essay. It was named one of the best books of the year by the New York Public Library, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, NPR, the Chicago Tribune, GQ, and the Paris Review. The book has been translated into eleven languages and is out in paperback now.

In her lecture, "Against Optimization," Tolentino will question and undermine the dominant ideas of worth, growth and meaning.

The Hatfield Lecture series is funded by a generous gift from John L. Hatfield ‘67. 

The Libraries strive to make their events as accessible as possible. If you have any accessibility questions, please email lat.group@lafayette.edu.