Past Event: An Evening with Colson Whitehead

Please note that this program is now sold out. There will be a wait list starting at 6:30 pm on the night of the program. Any additional seats will be released at 7:05 pm in the order the names were received. You must be physically present when your name is called or your place will be forfeited. We do not guarantee that any seats will become available. Latecomers may be seated in an overflow theater. 

The Robert A. and Elizabeth R. Jeffe Distinguished Lecture in Urban History | Spring 2019

“Talking about New York is a way of talking about the world,” Pulitzer Prize-winning author Colson Whitehead writes in The Colossus of New York (2004). One of today’s most unpredictable writers, Whitehead’s work crisscrosses genres from his debut novel, The Intuitionist (1999), a noir detective story, to zombie thriller Zone One (2011) and, most recently, The Underground Railroad (2016). Still, he returns again and again to New York, his native city, as an anchor to grapple with universal questions and timeless themes. As part of our annual Jeffe Distinguished Lectures in Urban History, Whitehead will discuss his deep engagement with the history of New York City in his novels and non-fiction. After his talk, he will be joined in conversation by The Atlantic's Hannah Giorgis. 

Reception and book signing to follow. 

This program is part of our annual Robert A. and Elizabeth R. Jeffe Distinguished Lectures in Urban History series, in which leading observers apply insights from disciplines including history, archaeology, sociology, and architecture to examine the evolution of New York City's five boroughs.  

About the Speaker:
Colson Whitehead is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Underground Railroad, which won the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Fiction, the National Book Award, and was named one of the Ten Best Books of the Year by The New York Times Book Review. His other notable works include The Noble Hustle, Zone One, Sag Harbor, The Intuitionist, John Henry Days, Apex Hides the Hurt, and The Colossus of New York. He is also a recipient of the MacArthur and Guggenheim Fellowships. Whitehead's reviews, essays, and fiction have appeared in a number of publications, including The New Yorker and Harper's.

Hannah Giorgis is a staff writer at The Atlantic, where she covers culture. Her essays and reporting have appeared in publications including The New York Times magazine, New Yorker, The FADER, Bon Appétit, and Pitchfork. She has written short stories for the Lifted Brow literary journal, Spook magazine, and the forthcoming Addis Ababa Noir anthology, and is currently working on her first novel.