Summer Reading Assignment

Summer Read Program:  Faculty Panel for New Students
Saturday, August 25
2:30pm
Cordiner Hall

Three Whitman professors will share unique, discipline-specific perspectives on the Summer Read Program 2012 book selection, The Warmth of Other Suns.
This session will provide new students with a brief introduction to the intellectual community at Whitman and serve as a springboard for book discussions to follow.

Presentations by:
Doug Scarborough, Assistant Professor of Music
Helen Kim, Associate Professor of Sociology
Jim Russo, Associate Professor of Biochemistry, Biophysics, and Molecular Biology

Moderated by:
Timothy Kaufman-Osborn, Provost and Dean of the Faculty.

 

2012 Summer Reading Assignment
"The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Migration" by Isabel Wilkerson

 

The 2012-13 new student book selection is The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Migration, by Isabel Wilkerson, the first black woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for journalism.  The book chronicles one of the great untold stories of American history: the decades-long migration of black citizens fleeing the tyranny of the Jim Crow South for northern and western cities in search of a better life.  From World War I to the 1970's, this exodus of almost six million people changed the cultural and political landscape of the country forever, setting in motion the civil rights movement.  Wilkerson portrays a detailed and vibrant picture of the change in northern cities, the music and culture that developed and the long-lasting consequences of this major demographic shift in American society.

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All new students are asked to read “The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic Story of America's Migration” and be prepared to participate in a small group discussion of the book with your resident assistant (RA) and student academic adviser (SA) during the fall new student orientation program.