Lázaro Lima - "Being Brown" - Joshua Chambers-Letson

“With sophistication and grace, this critical biography unpacks the trouble with liberal-humanist narratives of ‘uplift’ while nevertheless celebrating Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor and the moment of her confirmation. A scholarly tour de force and a readerly treasure.”—Patrick Anderson, author of Autobiography of a Disease

Lázaro Lima discusses Being Brown: Sonia Sotomayor and the Latino Question. He will be joined in conversation by Joshua Chambers-Letson. A Q&A and signing will follow the discussion.

Presented in partnership with the Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture (CSRPC)

At the Co-op

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About the book: Being Brown: Sonia Sotomayor and the Latino Question tells the story of the country’s first Latina Supreme Court Associate Justice’s rise to the pinnacle of American public life at a moment of profound demographic and political transformation. It provides the historical vocabulary for understanding why the Latino body politic is central to the country’s future and why Sonia Sotomayor’s biography provides an important window into understanding America at this historical juncture.

About the author: Lázaro Lima is the E. Claiborne Robins Distinguished Chair in the Liberal Arts and Professor of American Studies at the University of Richmond. He is the author of The Latino Body: Crisis Identities in American Literary and Cultural Memory and Ambientes: New Queer Latino Writing, coedited with Felice Picano.

About the interlocutor: Joshua Chambers-Letson is associate professor of Performance Studies at Northwestern University. He is the author of After the Party: A Manifesto for Queer of Color Life (NYU Press, 2018) and A Race So Different: Law and Performance in Asian America (NYU Press, 2013). He is the co-editor with Tavia Nyong’o of José Esteban Muñoz’s The Sense of Brown, forthcoming from Duke University Press. His essays have circulated in both academic and art venues and with Ann Pellegrini and Tavia Nyong’o he is a series co-editor of the Sexual Cultures series at NYU Press.