This virtual event is available to anyone, anywhere and is available for ticket holders to replay for one week
“Coates has become one of the most influential black intellectuals of his generation, joining predecessors including Ms. [Toni] Morrison, Professor Henry Louis Gates Jr., and Dr. Cornel West.”
The New York Times
Courtesy photo by Gabriella Demczuk/ The New York Times
SANTA BARBARA — UCSB Arts & Lectures presents groundbreaking author Ta-Nehisi Coates in a virtual presentation as part of its acclaimed Race to Justice series on Tuesday, Jan. 12 at 5 p.m. Pacific. This presentation will be followed by an audience Q&A moderated by Terrance Wooten, professor in the UCSB Department of Black Studies. Ticket holders will be able to replay this event for one week.
Drawing comparisons to James Baldwin and hailed by the late Toni Morrison as “required reading,” MacArthur Fellow Ta-Nehisi Coates has emerged as one of our most vital public intellectuals. He is the author of the National Book Award-winning Between the World and Me, as well as the acclaimed bestsellers Beautiful Struggle and We Were Eight Years in Power. His first novel, The Water Dancer, was released in September 2019. Coates is a distinguished writer in residence at NYU’s Arthur L. Carter Journalism Institute and was a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he wrote about culture, politics and social issues. He is also the current author of the Marvel comics The Black Panther and Captain America. HBO released an adaptation of Between the World and Me in the fall featuring an all-star cast including Oprah Winfrey and Angela Bassett that incorporates documentary footage from the actors’ home life, archival footage and animation.
ABOUT
TA-NEHISI COATES
In his work as a National Book Award-winning writer and formerly as a National Correspondent for The Atlantic, Ta-Nehisi Coates has emerged as an essential voice for our times. His award-winning writing combines reportage, historical analysis and personal narrative to address some of America’s most complex and challenging issues pertaining to culture and identity.
Exhibiting a preternatural ability for articulating the ways in which America’s history has informed its current condition, Coates has been compared to James Baldwin and praised as “required reading” by Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison. He addresses audiences across the country on urgent cultural topics, including discriminatory housing policies, mass incarceration, deleterious interpretations of history and his personal experiences growing up as an African American male in the United States.
Coates’s 2017 book, We Were Eight Years in Power: An American Tragedy, is a collection of his writing from the Obama era, including never-before published essays. Since 2016, Coates has also written Marvel’s The Black Panther comic books and has just begun writing Captain America.
Coates’ debut novel, The Water Dancer, was an Oprah’s Book Club selection and an NAACP (National Association for the Advancement of Colored People) finalist. He is adapting The Water Dancer into a screenplay to be produced by Harpo and Plan B Productions. His following 2015 book Between the World and Me was a No. 1 New York Times bestseller, as well as required or recommended reading at over 400 colleges and universities across the country. Structured as a letter to his teenage son, it moves from Baltimore to Howard University to New York City to Paris, addressing what it means to inhabit an African American body in today’s America. Between the World and Me was adapted into a HBO special that aired in Fall 2020.
Coates grew up in West Baltimore and attended Howard University. He is a Distinguished Writer in Residence for New York University’s Carter Journalism Institute.
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.
Most virtual events are hour-long programs.
Race to Justice virtual events are FREE for UCSB students (registration required).
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.
Ta-Nehisi Coates is presented by UCSB Arts & Lectures. Part of the Race to Justice series.
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 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.
Race to Justice Media Sponsors: Santa Barbara Independent, KCRW, Voice Magazine, Noozhawk.
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.
UCSB Arts & Lectures gratefully acknowledges our Community Partners the Natalie Orfalea Foundation & Lou Buglioli for their generous support of the 2020-2021 season.