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Thomas Chatterton Williams

Thomas Chatterton Williams

Cultural Critic, Author & The Atlantic Contributing Writer

A cultural critic for extraordinary times, Thomas Chatterton Williams brings his insightful....

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A cultural critic for extraordinary times, Thomas Chatterton Williams brings his insightful perspective to subjects of race, Black identity and history, cancel culture, social justice and inequality in America and the world. His thought-provoking talks touch upon some of the most urgent issues confronting American culture today — intertwined with his own family’s compelling multigenerational story of transformation from what is called Black to what is perceived to be white.

Called “a remarkable new literary voice,” Williams is the author of two highly acclaimed books: Self Portrait in Black and White: Family, Fatherhood and Rethinking Race, a TIME “Must Read” book, and Losing My Cool: Love, Literature, and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd. Both memoirs artfully blend his own story with larger themes of family, race and social justice.

A visiting professor of the humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, he is a contributing writer at The Atlantic. Previously a contributing writer at The New York Times Magazine and a columnist at Harper’s, his work has appeared in The New Yorker, the London Review of Books, Le Monde and many other places, and has been collected in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing.

A 2022 Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Berlin Prize from The American Academy in Berlin, he was a 2019 New America national fellow and is currently a visiting fellow at AEI. His next book, Nothing Was the Same: The Pandemic Summer of George Floyd and the Shift in Western Consciousness, will be published by Knopf.

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Topics

Topics

How to Engage in Important Debates

Unlearning Race

Beyond Black History Month: Achieving Authentic Antiracism

The Summer of George Floyd

Videos

Videos

Thomas Chatterton Williams, The Civil Discourse (Season 3)
Thomas Chatterton Williams on Useful Idiots, Interview Only

Books

Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture
Losing My Cool: How a Father's Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-hop Culture
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News

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