ARRK June 2021 Discussion with Elizabeth Manwell
Participants restricted to Kalamazoo College Faculty, Staff, Students, and Administration
A discussion where participants can share and discuss books, movies, podcasts, and music centering Black Joy.
4-5 p.m. on Tuesday, June 15th
ARRK Meeting space (MS Teams)
Discussion Leader: Elizabeth Manwell
For June’s ARRK we will be sharing and discussing books, movies, podcasts, music, and more centering Black Joy. The discussion will start with a chapter from Samantha Irby’s We are Never Meeting in Real Life, “The Real Housewives of Kalamazoo” and the first episode of Issa Rae’s web series The Misadventures of Awkward Black Girl. A PDF of Irby’s chapter as well as a collaborative spreadsheet for participants to share their recommendations can be found on the ARRK Teams Meeting Space.
The AntiRacism Reading Knook (ARRK) is a collaboration between the K College library staff and our Inclusive Excellence (KCIE) leadership team. This initiative is NOT a book club, but seeks to facilitate campus-wide engagement with the books in the KCIE Reading for Change book collection. This collection was created to encourage learning about and facilitate greater access to antiracism information to all members of the campus community.
ARRK aims to:
- reduce barrier to entry into reading antiracism books,
- identify and highlight campus facilitators with experience teaching and/or disciplinary expertise who can provide context and guide discussions of specific texts,
- foster broader relationships among faculty and staff, and thus
- build greater capacity for an inclusive campus through sustained and focused engagement with shared texts.
- help catalyze members of the campus to engage in small group discussions of entire books in the collection (self-organized book clubs, if you will).
For further information on #ARRK see the KCIE AntiRacism Reading Knook page. To volunteer to lead one of these sessions complete the ARRK Discussion Leader application.