A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates: Presented by Charleston Gaillard Center & Buxton Books

Name: A Conversation with Ta-Nehisi Coates: Presented by Charleston Gaillard Center & Buxton Books
Start: 2024-10-09T19:30:00-04:00
Location: Gaillard Center

Schedule

Wed Oct 09 2024 at 07:30 pm

UTC-04:00

Location

Gaillard Center | Charleston, SC

PLEASE NOTE: This event was originally on Monday, October 7. It will now take place on Wednesday, October 9. Any ticket holders with questions or concerns about this change, please reach out to [email protected] or click here: https://gaillardcenter.org/a-conversation-with-ta-nehisi-coates-rescheduled/
Along with Charleston Gaillard Center, Buxton Books is proud to present New York Times bestselling author Ta-Nehisi Coates in celebration of his new book, The Message. Tickets on sale NOW!
To purchase tickets, please click here: https://gaillardcenter.org/events/ta-nehisi-coates/
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me will discuss his latest book, The Message. Coates’s new work delves into stories from three resonant sites of conflict to explore how the stories we tell—and the ones we don’t—shape our realities. Coates’s profound insights into contemporary social issues and civic discourse make this a relevant and timely addition to the Gaillard Center’s Fall for program.
Originally intending to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell’s classic “Politics and the English Language,” Coates found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.
In the first of the book’s three intertwining essays, Coates, on his first trip to Africa, finds himself in two places at once: in Dakar, a modern city in Senegal, and in a mythic kingdom in his mind. Then he takes readers to Columbia, South Carolina, where he reports on his own book’s banning, but also explores the larger backlash to the nation’s recent reckoning with history and the deeply rooted American mythology so visible in that city. Finally, in the book’s longest section, Coates travels to Palestine, where he sees with devastating clarity how easily we are misled by nationalist narratives, and the tragedy that lies in the clash between the stories we tell and the reality of life on the ground.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country’s most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive myths that shape our world—and our own souls—and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
All tickets, as indicated, include a copy of The Message.
To purchase tickets, please click here: https://gaillardcenter.org/events/ta-nehisi-coates/
About Ta-Nehisi Coates:
Ta-Nehisi Coates is an award-winning author and journalist. His books include Between The World and Me and The Water Dancer. He is currently a writer-in-residence at Howard University.
About The Message:
The #1 New York Times bestselling author of Between the World and Me travels the world to explore how the stories we tell--and the ones we don't--shape our realities.
Coates originally set off to write a book about writing, in the tradition of Orwell's classic Politics and the English Language, but found himself grappling with deeper questions about how our stories—our reporting and imaginative narratives and mythmaking—expose and distort our realities.
The first of the book's three intertwining essays is set in Dakar, Senegal. Despite being raised as a strict Afrocentrist—and named for Nubian pharaoh—Coates had never set foot on the African continent until now. He roams the "steampunk" city of "old traditions and new machinery," meeting with strangers and dining with local writers who quiz him in French about African American politics. But everywhere he goes he feels as if he's in two places at once: a modern city in Senegal and a mythic kingdom in his mind, the pan-African homeland he was raised to believe was the origin and destiny for all black people. Finally he travels to the slave castles off the coast and touches the ocean that carried his ancestors away in chains—and has his own reckoning with the legacy of the Afrocentric dream.
Back in the USA he takes readers along with him to Columbia, South Carolina, where he explores a different mythology, this one enforced on its subjects by the state. He enters the world of the teacher whose job is threatened for teaching one of Coates's own books and discovers a community of mostly white supporters who were transformed and even radicalized by the stories they discovered in the "racial reckoning" of 2020o. But he also explores the backlash to this reckoning and the deeper myths and stories of the community—a capital of the confederacy with statues of segregationists looming over the its public squares.
In Palestine, the longest of the essays, he discovers the devastating gap between the narratives we've accepted and the clashing reality of life on the ground. He meets with activists and dissidents, Israelis and Palestinians--the old, who remember their dispossessions on two continents, and the young who have only known struggle and disillusionment. He travels into Jerusalem, the heart of Zionist mythology, and to the occupied territories, where he sees the reality the myth is meant to hide. It is this hidden story that draws him in and profoundly changes him--and makes the war that would soon come all the more devastating.
Written at a dramatic moment in American and global life, this work from one of the country's most important writers is about the urgent need to untangle ourselves from the destructive nationalist myths that shape our world--and our own souls-- and embrace the liberating power of even the most difficult truths.
About Charleston Gaillard Center:
A leader in the performing arts in the Southeast, the Charleston Gaillard Center commissions, supports, and presents ambitious, multidisciplinary cultural programming and provides access to the best local, national, and global artists and companies on its stage. Deeply rooted in the community, the Gaillard Center is committed to elevating local and regional voices and partnering with Charleston institutions to reflect the city’s diversity, both on stage and off. Through programming on its public campus and extensive arts education initiatives, the Gaillard Center serves as a platform to participate in community building and essential dialogue.
The Gaillard Center is a community asset located in the heart of an inspiration corridor of cultural institutions on the Charleston peninsula. Established as a nonprofit in 2015, its campus includes the 1,818-seat Martha and John M. Rivers Performance Hall, a 16,000 square-foot exhibition hall that is home to artistic activations and community and corporate events and celebrations and an adjacent park space that was recently activated for artistic presentations. The Gaillard Center aspires to be a great place to work; it employs the best people, nurtures them, and enables them to succeed. Find more information and upcoming programming at gaillardcenter.org.
To purchase tickets, please click here: https://gaillardcenter.org/events/ta-nehisi-coates/