The Center for the Study of American Democracy welcome Clint Smith, winner of the 2021 National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction.
Smith won the award for "How the Word Is Passed: A Reckoning With the History of Slavery Across America" (Little, Brown), an eloquent exploration of how we talk about slavery, how we remember it, and what kind of monuments and sites of remembrance we have created to "pass the word." The Kenyon Colloquium will be reading "How the Word is Passed" in the spring semester.
For Smith’s forthcoming book, "Just Beneath The Soil," he traveled to Europe to explore how survivors, relatives, and residents experience Second World War memorials and also explores the experiences and memories of Americans from marginalized communities such as Navajo code talkers and his great uncle, an African American veteran of that war. Smith's public address at Kenyon will address the new book.
Smith is also a staff writer at The Atlantic whose recent work has addressed the administration’s efforts to shape the Smithsonian’s presentation of American history, and a poet who has published two acclaimed works of poetry, "Above Ground" and "Counting Descent."
As part of his visit, which is cosponsored by the Kenyon Review, Smith will also give a poetry reading (details to follow).