吃瓜tv

As part of this year鈥檚 Common Read, we will be gathering in room C102 on October 22 from 5:30pm to think about, talk about and celebrate the work of African-American writer James Baldwin.

In particular we will be wondering what it means to read James Baldwin鈥檚 work in 2025. How can his work help us imagine our own relationship to the world around us, to think through our lives in Paris, to respond to events ongoing around the world?

Students and all members of the 吃瓜tv Community are invited to come and listen, but also to participate if you wish. These responses may be in response to Baldwin鈥檚 essays 鈥� perhaps those collected in the book Encounter on the Seine, his fiction, his media interventions or his activism. They may be in response to Black History month, which runs through October in Europe.

We are delighted that Professors Russell Williams and Andrea Rosengarten will be joined too by graduate student Brianna Holt and writer, broadcaster and scholar Gary Younge. Gary is a keen reader of Baldwin and the author of books including Pigeonholed: Creative Freedom as an Act of Resistance (2025) and Another Day in the Death of America (2016). He was formerly editor-at-large at The Guardian newspaper.

If you鈥檇 like to listen, you鈥檙e very welcome. If you鈥檇 like to read some of your words, or those of Baldwin that particularly speak to you, you are equally welcome 鈥� if you鈥檇 like to participate (speaking for no more than 4-5 minutes) please register your interest by emailing me at rwilliamsaup.edu.