Jefferson Humanities Forum: Brother Epistles
About this Event
Jefferson Humanities Forum presents
Shanda McManus: Brother Epistles
Tuesday, September 23, 4-5:00 p.m. | DEC Forum, Lawrence N. Field DEC Center, 4201 Henry Avenue, Philadelphia (East Falls Campus)
Free and open to all.
Shanda McManus, MD, grew up in Philadelphia and has practiced family medicine for over twenty years. Dr. McManus received her B.A. in English literature from the University of Pennsylvania and her M.D. from Sidney Kimmel Medical College. She is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Medicine at Hackensack Meridian School of Medicine, where she champions the practice of Narrative Medicine. Dr. McManus writes about the intersection of life, race, and was privileged to be a 2021 PEN America Emerging Voices fellow. Her debut memoir, Brother Epistles, is an epistolary work — a series of intimate letters to her brother Monir, killed in Philadelphia while she was a first-year medical student at Jefferson.
Three decades later, Dr. McManus traces Monir's life through their shared upbringing in North Philadelphia, his teen fatherhood, his time in the U.S. Army, and finally, his participation in the drug trade — writing always as both sister and physician. Braiding grief, memory, social commentary, and collective history, Brother Epistles asks what it means to bear witness to Black life, loss, and survival from inside both a family and a white coat. The book laments the fragility of Monir's life while demanding an American reckoning for the socioeconomic structures responsible for so many young Black men dying through homicide. Leavened with humor, family love, and unconquerable Black joy, it is a heartbreaking and powerful meditation on Black identity, the criminalization of Black boys, and the devastating ripple effects of loss on the loved ones left behind.
The Honors Literary Salon will discuss Brother Epistles for the Fall 2026 semester. Interested students should check the Honors Canvas site for more information about book pickup, dates, and cornerstone eligibility.
During 2026-2027, the Jefferson Humanities Forum hosts multidisciplinary scholars and thinkers to investigate the theme of Movement.
Co-presented by Jefferson Humanities & Health, the Philadelphia University Honors Institute at Thomas Jefferson University and the College of Humanities & Sciences
Learn more: Jefferson.edu/Humanities
For more information, email Kirsten Bowen, Humanities Program Coordinator, Student Affairs, at [email protected].
Read about Dr. McManus in and the .
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