The First Year Reading Program, Washington University’s popular book club for incoming students, is expanding to include the entire WUSTL community.
Staff members now are invited to participate in a small group discussion of Notes from No Man’s Land, Eula Biss’ 2009 award-winning essay collection.
Washington University Libraries and the Office of Human Resources will host discussion groups from noon to 1:30 p.m. Aug.
12-16 in Olin Library, Room 142.
Sign up early for a free copy of the book. Twenty-five books — five per session — will be distributed to the early registrants.
Rudolph Clay, head of outreach services at Washington University Libraries, calls the book a provocative investigation of race and identity. But, first and foremost, Notes from No Man’s Land is a great read, Clay says.
“I think some people may say, ‘Diversity. Wow, this is a really heavy issue’ or ‘These problems don’t apply to me,’” Clay said. “But what makes the book so great is her creativity and how she looks at age, geography, all of the different things that divide people. Everyone is going to find something that they will relate to and want to talk about.”
Biss draws upon topics ranging from reality television to NAFTA to explore surprising truths about her own history as well as the history we share as Americans. The book won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Criticism and the Graywolf Press Nonfiction Prize.
Salon calls Notes from No Man’s Land this century’s most important essay collection while the Chicago Tribune writes that Biss is a master storyteller.
“Biss moves through language like a spider spinning a web, delicately linking telephone poles and lynch mobs, Laura Ingalls Wilder’s ‘Little House’ books and Biss’s own Rogers Park neighborhood,” writes Tribune literary editor Elizabeth Taylor. “Biss writes like a poet, evoking images with a cool passion, and she plays with ideas on the page and challenges readers to work out their own rhythms.”
Alfreda Brown, Human Resources project manager for diversity, says such frank conversations can build bonds not just among new students, but old colleagues as well.
“It was Jim McLeod who taught us to take time to get to know each other, to learn each other’s story and name,” said Brown, referring to the beloved vice chancellor for
students and dean of the College of Arts & Sciences who died in 2011.
“We can’t do that unless we talk to each other. Hopefully, these discussions can help us tell our stories — why do I feel the way I do, what experiences have I had that make me who I am, how do they help or hinder me?”
To sign up online, go to HRMS, Employee Self-Service, click on “Training & Development,” then “Training Request” and then “Human Resources Enrollment.” Locate the program, “1st. Yr. Reading Prg Staff” and click on “View Available Sessions.” Or email Brown at alfredabrown@wustl.edu or Clay at rudolphc@wustl.edu.
All first-year students will
participate in faculty-led group discussions of the book Aug. 26.
Biss, who earned a MFA at the University of Iowa, teaches at Northwestern University. She will be on campus to give an Assembly Series talk at 7 p.m. Sept. 9 in Edison Theatre.
Events and activities related to the
First Year Reading Program will be held throughout the year. A schedule of the events can be found here.
To read an excerpt of Notes from No Man’s Land, visit Biss’ website eulabiss.net.