WITS Study Hall BOOKS 2022-2023 School Year
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.
SKINSHIP
On June 14 we will discuss Skinship by Yoon Choi. Through an indelible array of lives, Choi explores where first and second generations either clash or find common ground, where meaning falls in the cracks between languages, where relationships bend under the weight of tenderness and disappointment, where displacement turns to heartbreak.
Skinship is suffused with a profound understanding of humanity and offers a searing look at who the people we love truly are.
“Extraordinary…Magical…Reading Choi’s stories reminds me of how I felt when I first read the works of other singular sensations like Kevin Wilson or Karen Russell, writers who do things with language and storytelling that no one else has quite done before…It’s Choi’s approach, the way her stories unexpectedly splinter out from a single life to touch upon decades of family history shaped by immigration, that makes them something special…All these stories are standouts, but the title story is in a class of its own.” —Maureen Corrigan, Fresh Air/NPR
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - skinship
One
What are your thoughts on the author's writing style? Did it serve the story well?
Two
Three
Four
Are there lingering questions from the book you're still thinking about?
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES - SKINSHIP
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.
The Care and Feeding of Ravenously Hungry Girls
“The inequities of the justice system, the fortitude of women of color, and the bittersweet struggle to connect are rendered lavishly in this bighearted novel.” —Oprah Magazine
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - THE CARE AND FEEDING OF RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY GIRLS
One
What are your thoughts on the author's writing style? Did it serve the story well?
Two
Three
Four
Are there lingering questions from the book you're still thinking about?
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES - THE CARE AND FEEDING OF RAVENOUSLY HUNGRY GIRLS
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.
Read This to Get Smarter: About Race, Class, Gender, Disability & More
"Blair answers the questions that so many of us are asking." -Layla F. Saad, author of Me and White Supremacy
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS -Read This to Get Smarter: About Race, Class, Gender, Disability & More
One
What is one thing you learned from this book that you did not know prior to reading?
Two
Three
Four
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES - Read This to Get Smarter: about Race, Class, Gender, Disability & More
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.
Razorblade Tears
"Superb...Cuts right to the heart of the most important questions of our times." -Michael Connelly
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - Razorblade Tears
One
Two
Three
Four
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES -RAZORBLADE TEARS
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.
In the Dream House
"The world needs this book. . . . We need this book precisely because it's so literary--enabling a view of domestic abuse, in the LGBT community and beyond, that only literature can manifest. . . . [Machado] uses formal experimentation to extend [empathy] into moral and political territory."-Psychology Today
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - In the Dream House
One
Two
Three
Four
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES - IN THE DREAM HOUSE
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.
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong
Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning
On August 18th we will discuss Minor Feelings: An Asian American Reckoning by Cathy Park Hong. Part memoir and part cultural criticism, this collection of stories is vulnerable, humorous, and provocative. Its relentless and riveting pursuit of vital questions around family and friendship, art and politics, identity and individuality will change the way you think about our world.
Hong begins her new book of essays with a bang. . . .The essays wander a variegated terrain of memoir, criticism and polemic, oscillating between smooth proclamations of certainty and twitches of self-doubt. . . . Minor Feelings is studded with moments [of] candor and dark humor shot through with glittering self-awareness.- The New York Times
DISCUSSION QUESTIONS - minor feelings
One
What are you thoughts on the term “minor feelings”?
Two
In what ways does the author find belonging and experience discrimination at both Oberlin and Iowa?
Three
How does the author interact with notions of racial visibility versus invisibility?
Four
How did this book help you to understand the 'Model Minority' stereotype?
SUPPLEMENTAL RESOURCES - MINOR FEELINGS
These additional resources will help integrate learning from our book of the month with current events, art, media, and politics. They may be referenced during WITS Study Hall meetings, so check them out.SOCIAL MEDIA
Tag @witschicago and use #WITStudyHall to let us know you’re reading along with us!
