This conversation, moderated by Christina Abreu, Director of the Center for Latino and Latin American Studies, draws on Smith’s 2021 book, How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning with the History of Slavery Across America, which was a #1 New York Times bestseller, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction and selected by the New York Times as one of the 10 best books of 2021.
Smith’s bestselling books include How the Word Is Passed, which Publishers Weekly called “an essential consideration of how America’s past informs its present.” It has won numerous awards, including the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction, and was named one of the best books of the year by TIME, The New York Times, The Economist and The Washington Post.
His latest book, Above Ground, was named to TIME magazine’s 100 Must-Read Books and NPR‘s Books We Love. Smith’s first book, Counting Descent, won the 2017 Literary Award for Best Poetry Book from the Black Caucus of the American Library Association and was a finalist for an NAACP Image Award. In his forthcoming book, Just Beneath the Soil, he will explore the little-known stories behind World War II sites and discuss how they shape our collective memory of the war.
His essays, poems, and scholarly writing have been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The New Republic, Poetry Magazine, The Paris Review, the Harvard Educational Review and elsewhere. He is a staff writer at The Atlantic.
The W. Bruce Lincoln Endowed Lecture Series brings to campus distinguished scholars who address topics of interest to both the academic community and the general public. The lectures engage key issues and are often interdisciplinary, in the spirit of Professor Lincoln’s research, writing and teaching.
The event is made possible by generous support from the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, the Departments of History and Communication, and the Center for Black Studies.
