Campus Read: Participate in Virtual Discussions on the Writings of Colson Whitehead
As part of the St. Louis Literary Award series of programs honoring the 2025 award recipient Colson Whitehead, the Saint Louis University 2025 Campus Read Speaker Series will highlight Whitehead's work, with a focus on his award-winning work "The Underground Railroad."
Attendees interested in attending the Campus Book Talk Series can register via Zoom.
Whitehead is the author of the novels “The Intuitionist,” “John Henry Days,” “Apex Hides the Hurt,” “Sag Harbor,” “The Underground Railroad,” “The Nickel Boys,” and “Harlem Shuffle,” among others. He also penned a book of essays about New York City, “The Colossus of New York.”
In addition to the Pulitzer, “The Underground Railroad,” won the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Fiction. “The Nickel Boys” won the Pulitzer Prize, the Kirkus Prize, and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
Saint Louis University launched the Campus Read in 2019 in conjunction with the St. Louis Literary Award. Before 2019, the University sponsored the Common First Year Read for incoming students. Copies of the Campus Read books are available for free to the SLU campus community at the patron desks of all of the University Libraries.
The Campus Read Book talk series is open to the public with registration.
2025 Campus Read Events
The Museum of Historical Wonders: Colson Whitehead's The Underground Railroad with Alexander Manshel, Ph.D.
In 2019, Colson Whitehead appeared on the cover of TIME magazine above the headline "America's Storyteller." This talk will investigate that title by situating "The Underground Railroad" in the context of Whitehead's storied career as a novelist, including his experiments with literary genre, his forays into America's troubled past, and his contributions to contemporary narratives of slavery.
Alexander Manshel is an associate professor of English at McGill University. His research focuses on contemporary American fiction and the literary institutions that shape how and what we read. His first book, "Writing Backwards: Historical Fiction and the Reshaping of the American Canon," was published in 2023 by Columbia University Press. His other writing has appeared in The Atlantic, The Nation, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and LitHub, as well as in the scholarly journals PMLA, MELUS, and Post45. He is currently working on a book-length history of high school English in the United States.
The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, Feb. 20.
Chris Kellerman, S.J.
Is it really true that people “didn’t know slavery was wrong back then”? Did the Catholic Church teach against slaveholding, or for it? In this presentation, Fr. Chris Kellerman, S.J., will explain the basics of the Catholic Church’s historical involvement with slaveholding and the Atlantic slave trade, drawing lessons from this history for contemporary society.
The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 6.
Hands On The Past, Growing A Creative Archival Future, with Sowandé Mustakeem, Ph.D.
The future is what we make of it, and so too is the past and our collective memory of it. Within this conversation, Sowandé Mustakeem, Ph.D., will show how she's developed an array of globally innovative courses, showing the evolution of history/herstory in and over real-time to further embolden creative engagement by fusing “old history” with fun accessible content both digital and nondigital. Equally valuable in this presentation will be pushing within and beyond the generational challenges of what an archive is on and offline and how to decipher the sole code of a long past with cursive. The overall goal of this talk will be to share how Mustakeem has been offering deep empowerment on a range of ever-pertinent historical/herstorical themes while simultaneously getting students "Hands On The Past" so that a well of smart knowledge can be poured in as the archival future arrives.
The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, March 27.
A Black Woman’s Journey: Studying, Teaching, and Understanding the Institution of Slavery, with Katrina Thompson Moore, Ph.D.
History and its social and political significance within society have been a topic of debate and controversy for a long time. This is one Black woman’s journey in navigating identity, family stories, classroom politics, and emotions with the history of enslavement in the United States.
Katrina Thompson Moore, Ph.D. is the associate dean for diversity, equity, inclusion, and engagement for the Saint Louis University College of Arts and Sciences. She is also an associate professor in the Department of African American Studies and History at SLU. She specializes in 19th- and 20th-century issues of race, gender, stereotypes, popular culture and American entertainment history.
Moore received her B.A. from Our Lady of the Lake University and an M.A. and Ph.D. from the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Moore's book published in 2014 titled "Ring Shout, Wheel About: The Racial Politics of Music and Dance in North American Slavery" focused on the complexity of Black music and dance in the foundation of the United States and has been recognized as one of the 13 most important books in Black history by the Washington Post. She has also published numerous articles and book chapters on the experience of Black people in America. Beyond academic publications, Katrina Thompson Moore published a children’s book in 2021 to support representation across the spectrum and hopes to venture further into children’s publishing.
For the past 16 years, has resided in and contributed to the St. Louis community, but the events of Ferguson placed a new level of responsibility on her shoulders. After actively supporting the protest movement, she became more involved in the change she wanted to see in the region. These desires resulted in Moore serving as a two-term alderperson, joining the board of community-serving organizations of Beyond Housing, Women’s Leadership Network of St. Louis and St. Ann Catholic School, and actively volunteering with organizations focused on social justice. Most recently, Moore was recognized by the St. Louis Urban League with the Donald G. Brennan Humanitarian Award for her work within the region. A native of New Orleans, Katrina Moore is a proud wife and mother to two daughters.
The event is scheduled for 7 p.m. on Thursday, April 3.
The 2025 St. Louis Literary Award ceremony is on April 9, at the Sheldon Concert Hall. A craft talk will take place on April 10 on the campus of Saint Louis University.