This virtual event is available to anyone, anywhere and is available for ticket holders to replay for one week
Photo credit: Joe Henson
SUMMARY
- UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Isabel Wilkerson
- Caste: The Origins of our Discontents
- Winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, Wilkerson is a leading figure in narrative nonfiction, an interpreter of the human condition and an impassioned voice for demonstrating how history can help us understand ourselves, our country and our current era of upheaval.
- Her debut work, The Warmth of Other Suns, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and many others.
- Wilkerson’s new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions.
- This presentation will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Ingrid Banks, Chair of the UCSB Department of Black Studies.
- Part of UCSB Arts & Lectures’ Race to Justice series
- Ticket holders will be able to replay this event for one week.
- Tuesday, Jan. 26 / 5 p.m. Pacific / Virtual
- $10 General Public and FREE for UCSB Students (registration required)
- Tickets/Info: (805) 893-3535, www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu
“Wilkerson combines impressive research… with great narrative and literary power… She humanizes history, giving it emotional and psychological depth.”
The Wall Street Journal
“Wilkerson’s work is the missing puzzle piece of our country’s history.”
The American Prospect
UCSB Arts & Lectures presents Isabel Wilkerson, author of Caste: The Origins of our Discontents and winner of the Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal, on Tuesday, Jan. 26 at 5 p.m. Pacific. The virtual presentation is part of UCSB A&L’s acclaimed Race to Justice series. This presentation will be followed by a Q&A moderated by Ingrid Banks, Chair of the UCSB Department of Black Studies. Ticket holders will be able to replay this event for one week.
Isabel Wilkerson has become a leading figure in narrative nonfiction, an interpreter of the human condition and an impassioned voice for demonstrating how history can help us understand ourselves, our country and our current era of upheaval. Her debut work, The Warmth of Other Suns, won the National Book Critics Circle Award and many others. Her new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, examines the unspoken caste system that has shaped America and shows how our lives today are still defined by a hierarchy of human divisions. Linking the caste systems of America, India and Nazi Germany, Wilkerson explores eight pillars that underlie caste systems across civilizations. Using riveting stories about people – including Martin Luther King, Jr., baseball’s Satchel Paige, a single father and his toddler son, Wilkerson herself and many others – she shows the ways that the insidious undertow of caste is experienced every day.
ABOUT
ISABEL WILKERSON
Through her writing, Isabel Wilkerson brings the invisible and the marginalized into the light and into our hearts. Through her lectures, she explores with authority the need to reconcile America’s karmic inheritance and the origins of both our divisions and our shared commonality.
She is a native of Washington, D.C., and a daughter of the Great Migration, the mass movement that she would go on to write about. She won the Pulitzer Prize for Feature Writing in 1994 as Chicago Bureau Chief of The New York Times, making her the first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism. She then devoted 15 years and interviewed more than 1,200 people to tell the story of the six million people, among them her parents, who defected from the Jim Crow South.
As for her new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, the venerable U.K. bookseller, Waterstone’s calls it an “expansive, lyrical and stirring account of the unspoken system of divisions that govern our world.”
RACE TO JUSTICE
Race to Justice: This is a moment of reckoning. As a nation, we are confronting evidence of inequality that reaches every corner of society. Arts & Lectures has a history of bringing complex issues to the forefront. Now, we are spearheading an in-depth look at systemic racism from every angle, including abolition, underlying conditions, reparations, criminal justice and more. Interdisciplinary and cross-departmental, this season-long series engages leading activists, creatives and thinkers to expand our understanding of racism and how race impacts society, and to inspire an expansive approach to advancing racial equality.
UCSB ARTS & LECTURES
Founded in 1959, UCSB Arts & Lectures is the largest and most influential arts and lectures organization between Los Angeles and San Francisco. Arts & Lectures annually presents more than a hundred events, from critically acclaimed concerts and dance performances by world-renowned artists to talks by groundbreaking authors and film series at UCSB and Santa Barbara-area venues. With a mission to “educate, entertain and inspire,” A&L also oversees an outreach program that brings visiting artists and speakers into local classrooms and other venues for master classes, open rehearsals, discussions and more, serving K-12 students, college students and the general public.
Isabel Wilkerson is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Part of the Race to Justice series.
Tickets are $10 for the general public and FREE for UCSB students (registration required).
For tickets and more information, call UCSB Arts & Lectures at (805) 893-3535 visit www.ArtsAndLectures.UCSB.edu.
Race to Justice Lead Sponsors: Marcy Carsey, Connie Frank & Evan Thompson, Patty & John MacFarlane, Sara Miller McCune, Santa Barbara Foundation, Lynda Weinman & Bruce Heavin, Dick Wolf, Zegar Family Foundation.
Race to Justice Media Sponsors: Santa Barbara Independent, KCRW, Voice Magazine, Noozhawk.
Race to Justice is presented in association with UC Santa Barbara Campus Partners: Department of Black Studies, Center for Black Studies Research, Division of Social Sciences, Division of Humanities and Fine Arts, Division of Mathematical, Life, and Physical Sciences, Division of Student Affairs, Gevirtz Graduate School of Education, Graduate Division, Bren School for Environmental Science & Management, College of Creative Studies, College of Engineering, MultiCultural Center, Carsey-Wolf Center, UCSB Library | UCSB Reads, Office of the Chancellor, Office of the Vice Chancellor for Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion, and Office of the Executive Vice Chancellor.
Most Race to Justice events are hour-long programs and include an audience Q&A.
Race to Justice events are FREE for UCSB students (registration required).
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2020-2021 season.