BY LOGAN HURSTON
FOR THE OBSERVER
AUBURN — Last week, author Claudia Rankine made her way to Auburn University for some reading events put on by Auburn University’s English Department.
Rankine is an award winning author who currently resides in New York. She’s written multiple books of poetry, with her most famous being the genre-defying book “Citizen,” which is about being a citizen in the United States, specifically an African American citizen who faces racism. “Citizen” has received many awards since its publication in 2014, including the National Book Critics Circle Award in poetry and a finalist for the National Book Award in poetry. The book is also the only poetry book to be a New York Times bestseller in the nonfiction genre.
Rankine was born in Kingston, Jamaica on Jan. 1, 1963 and immigrated to the United States when she was seven. Her first book of poetry, “Nothing in Nature is Private,” was published in 1994 when Rankine was 31. Her style of writing is different than most other authors as she blends poems, essays and visual artwork to create, as she puts it, “something vivid, intimate and transparent.”
Rankine’s works explore themes of racism and social justice. Not just an author, Rankine is also a playwright with three plays under her belt, including “HELP,” which premiered in New York City in 2020. In 2016, She co-founded the Racial Imaginary Institute, a multidisciplinary platform engaging with art and scholarship to examine race’s role and impact. Rankine’s received countless awards for her works, including being a recipient of the Bobbitt National Prize for Poetry, the Poets & Writers’ Jackson Poetry Prize, and fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation, the Lannan Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, United States Artists, and the National Endowment of the Arts.
During her stay in Auburn, Rankine did three events on campus. First was a discussion at the Jule Collins Smith Museum with Alabama poet laureate Ashley Jones. The event took place on the night of Feb. 4 with limited seating in the museum. Next was an open Q&A in Ralph Brown Draughon Library for students in the English department. The event took place in the early afternoon and gave the chance for English students to pick the mind of an esteemed author.
Finally, on the night of Feb. 5, Rankine did a reading and conversation with Dr. Ernest Gibson at the Telfair Peet Theatre. During this event, Rankine would read an excerpt of her next book, which hasn’t been published yet. She also discussed her other books with Dr. Gibson and discussed why “Citizen” remains so relevant as a piece of criticism on racism and the American culture around it. Over the course of the two days, around 300 students, faculty, and citizens of Auburn attended the events.
“The fundraising it took so that we could book Claudia took many months,” said Justin Gardiner, professor at Auburn University and runner of the Third Thursday series of readings. “I’ve been interested in bringing in a bigger deal, a bigger name. So I started talking to my colleague, Dr. Ernest Gibson of the English department who’s also the chair of Africana studies and he was interested in contributing. That’s what started it off. We started making an argument to other departments in the college of liberal arts to why Rankine would be of interest to them with her nonfiction background. After a few grants, I was in the neighborhood of what her agent’s stipend would run.”
Gardiner would pick up Rankine from the airport and drive her around Auburn during the week. Gardiner also took Rankine to the Legacy museum and lynching memorial in Montgomery, as the history of lynching and slavery is a big part of “Citizen,” with Rankine using art and photographs of the injustices.
“It was such a big deal, I’ve had it marked on my calendar since the dates came out,” says Caroline Chesnut, an English major at Auburn University. “I called my family after because I’ve talked about ‘Citizen’ with them. I think she really did some groundbreaking work in the book. In reading her work, the lyrical style of it was my first introduction to that style of writing. It’s something I want to learn and use in my writing. I got her to sign my book and write in it. It’s so inspiring to see her in person and have her here.”
After the success of this event, Gardiner hopes to potentially establish a new annual interdisciplinary nonfiction lecture series each year. The next reading for the English department in their Third Thursday series is with poet Cindy Juyoung Ok on Feb. 20 at Pebble Hill.
