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WITS Study Hall is a collaborative learning space for adult learners to actively participate in anti-racist conversation and enjoy the works of writers of color. We focus not just on anti-racist discourse, but celebrating the range of genres and stories by BIPOC authors.

WITS Study Hall explores one book every two months and is open to all readers. You can sign up to join our virtual meetings, or use this framework to start your own book club. We’ll provide the book selection, discussion questions, and supplemental resources. Whatever your engagement, we hope you join us in this important reading.

currently reading

The Undocumented Americans

Join us on September 25 to discuss The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio. The Undocumented Americans combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories, we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American." - Goodreads
“In her captivating and evocative first book, The Undocumented Americans, [Karla] Cornejo Villavicencio aims to tell ‘the full story’ of what it means to be undocumented in America, in all of its fraughtness and complexity, challenging the usual good and evil categories through a series of memoir-infused reported essays. In doing so, she reveals how her subjects, including her own family members, struggle with vices like adultery and self-harm, even while doing backbreaking, demeaning work to support their families. ... Cornejo Villavicencio reveals a fullness of character that feels subversive, simply because of how rare it is.”The New York Times Book Review

Our next meeting


September 25  2024


6:00-7:00pm CST


Zoom Link will be emailed



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DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - The Undocumented Americans


Keep in mind the following discussion questions to get you thinking as you read:

One

Why is the prevalent use of the term “undocumented workers” hugely problematic? What troublesome ideas about human value does it reinforce or emphasize?

Two

Why do you think that the author chose to weave memoir with reportage, creative ethnography, and elements of fiction such as magical realism? How does the book also fit within the Latin American genre of testimonio? What broader questions does this raise about what it means to bear witness to what is happening to undocumented immigrants in America not only for the author (who is both witness and subject) and other writers, but for all readers of the book?

Three

How does the healthcare system fail and endanger undocumented Americans and what role do alternative medicine and ceremony play in their lives?

Four

Is there anything you have learned from this session about being antiracist, and if so, how are you going to apply what you have learned to your life?

SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES - The Undocumented Americans

These additional resources will help integrate learning from our Study Hall books with additional interviews, articles, and podcasts. They may be referenced during WITS Study Hall meetings, so check them out.

WHAT'S NEXT?

Every summer, WITS collects votes to help decide on the next five Study Hall books. The twelve books that will be voted on have been featured in numerous must-read lists and include several bestsellers. You can vote using the form below, and let us know what you'd like to read next. We look forward to reading with you this school year!

Step 1 of 2

Which of these books are you books are you most excited to read? (check all that apply)(Required)

WHAT WE ARE READING THIS YEAR

September 2024 - May 2025


The Undocumented Americans Karla Cornejo Villavicencio book cover

Wednesday, September 25

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm CT

The Undocumented Americans by Karla Cornejo Villavicencio // Memoir // 208 pages

"One of the first undocumented immigrants to graduate from Harvard reveals the hidden lives of her fellow undocumented Americans in this deeply personal and groundbreaking portrait of a nation. The Undocumented Americans combines sensitive reporting and powerful personal narratives to bring to light remarkable stories of resilience, madness, and death. Through these stories, we come to understand what it truly means to be a stray. An expendable. A hero. An American." - Goodreads

About the Author

Karla Cornejo Villavicencio is an Ecuadorian-American writer and the author of The Undocumented Americans, a National Book Award finalist. Her work, which focuses on race, culture, and immigration, has appeared in The New York Times, The New Yorker, Vogue, Elle, n+1, The New Inquiry, Interview, and NPR.
All the Sinners Bleed Book Cover

Wednesday, November 20

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm CT

All the Sinners Bleed by S.A. Cosby // Novel // 341 pages

"At once a narrative about a serial killer on the loose, a tale of the lingering effects of racism in the South, a contemplation of religious zealotry, an exploration of trauma, and a love story that bubbles under a lot of fear, blood, and tension, S.A. Cosby's All the Sinners Bleed elegantly walks a fine line between horror and the kind of gritty crime fiction that has catapulted Cosby to crime fiction stardom." - NPR

About the Author

S. A. Cosby is an Anthony Award-winning writer from Southeastern Virginia. He is the author of the New York Times bestseller Razorblade Tears and Blacktop Wasteland, which won the Los Angeles Times Book Prize, was a New York Times Notable Book, and was named a best book of the year by NPR, The Guardian, and Library Journal, among others. When not writing, he is an avid hiker and chess player.
Teaching to transgress by bell hooks book cover

Tuesday, January 28

5:30 pm - 6:30 pm CT

Teaching to Transgress: Education as the Practice of Freedom by bell hooks // Nonfiction // 216 pages

"In Teaching to Transgress, bell hooks—writer, teacher, and insurgent black intellectual—writes about a new kind of education, education as the practice of freedom. Teaching students to "transgress" against racial, sexual, and class boundaries in order to achieve the gift of freedom is, for hooks, the teacher's most important goal.

Full of passion and politics, Teaching to Transgress combines a practical knowledge of the classroom with a deeply felt connection to the world of emotions and feelings. This is the rare book about teachers and students that dares to raise questions about eros and rage, grief and reconciliation, and the future of teaching itself." - Goodreads

About the Author

bell hooks (born Gloria Jean Watkins) was an African-American author, feminist, and social activist. Her writing focused on the interconnectivity of race, class, and gender and their ability to produce and perpetuate systems of oppression and domination. She published over thirty books and numerous scholarly and mainstream articles, appeared in several documentary films, and participated in various public lectures. Primarily through a postmodern female perspective, she addressed race, class, and gender in education, art, history, sexuality, mass media, and feminism.
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Wednesday, March 19

5:30 pm - 6:30 pm CT

Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah // Novel // 367 pages

Chain-Gang All-Stars is a kaleidoscopic, excoriating look at the American prison system’s unholy alli­ance of systemic racism, unchecked capitalism, and mass incarceration, and a clear-eyed reckoning with what freedom in this country means." - Tommy Orange, The New York Times Book Review

About the Author

Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah is the New York Times-bestselling author of Friday Black. His work has appeared in The New York Times Book ReviewEsquireThe Paris Review, and elsewhere. He was a National Book Foundation's "5 Under 35" honoree, the winner of the PEN/Jean Stein Book Award and the Saroyan Prize, and a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle's John Leonard Award for Best First Book, along with many other honors. Raised in Spring Valley, New York, he now lives in the Bronx.
“Yellowface” by R.F. Kuang book cover

Tuesday, May 20

6:00 pm - 7:00 pm CT

Yellowface by R.F. Kuang // Novel // 336 pages

"With its totally immersive first-person voice, Yellowface grapples with questions of diversity, racism, cultural appropriation, and the terrifying alienation of social media. R.F. Kuang’s novel is timely, razor-sharp, and eminently readable." - Goodreads

About the Author

Rebecca F. Kuang is the #1 New York Times and #1 Sunday Times bestselling author of the Poppy War trilogy, Babel: An Arcane HistoryYellowface, and Katabasis (forthcoming). Her work has won the Nebula, Locus, Crawford, and British Book Awards. She has been named to the 2023 Time100 Next list and the Forbes 30 Under 30 Class of 2024. A Marshall Scholar, she has an MPhil in Chinese Studies from Cambridge and an MSc in Contemporary Chinese Studies from Oxford. She is now pursuing a PhD in East Asian Languages and Literatures at Yale, where she studies Sinophone literature and Asian American literature.