Vassar College Selects THE PROPHETS as the Common Reading for 2024
I will be attending the in-person discussion at the college on September 23, 2024.
Hello Family,
I hope you are all doing well as can be given the organized chaos happening in many places around the globe including the United States.
In the midst of this, I feel nearly embarrassed to say that I have some astounding news to share with you.
Vassar College, one of the premier institutions of higher learning in the world, has selected my debut novel, The Prophets, as its common reading for the 2024 incoming freshman class!
The Vassar College 2024 Common Reading for the Class of 2028: The Prophets by Robert Jones, Jr.
The William A. Starr Distinguished Lecture (featuring Jones)
Wednesday, September 23, 2024, 5:30 p.m. ET
The Villard Room
124 Raymond Avenue
Poughkeepsie, New York 12604
What is a common reading?
The common reading is a relatively new practice that colleges and universities (as well as elementary, middle, and high schools) began as a means of encouraging intellectual discussion, debate, and understanding amongst campus communities. According to Forbes:
The core component of these programs, which often introduce new college students to their first academic assignment, is to engage an entire campus community—students, faculty and staff—in reading the same book in order to promote a wide-ranging conversation about an important issue or controversy.
That shared experience, which at most institutions is revisited and reinforced by additional programs and events throughout the year, is thought to build a sense of community and stimulate thoughtful interactions among students and faculty. At dozens of colleges, the exercise has been in place long enough to be regarded as a campus rite of passage.
Sometimes the program is limited to first-year students. However, at other colleges, all students are involved. A college’s selection of its common reader can occasionally stir controversy because of the hot-button topics that are often addressed in the assigned reading.
This is the first time that The Prophets has been chosen for such a distinction and my initial reaction was first humility and then tremendous shock—given the anti-diversity furor currently sweeping the U.S. and the nation’s deliberate march toward fascism as a result of determined Republican sociopathy, willful Democratic ineptitude, mainstream journalistic complicity, widespread social cowardice and somnambulism, and, of course, general and specific wickedness bought and paid for by the filthy rich.
The Prophets makes no bones about its interrogations and criticisms of authoritative power, capitalism, white supremacy, patriarchy, anti-queerness, anti-transness, misogyny, and other bigotries. The idea of “innocence” itself is scrutinized in it. And since “innocence” is one of the world’s most valuable currencies (for its gaslighting and accountability-blocking abilities), The Prophets is a perfect target for those who hate unflattering knowledge and unfavorable history (which is to say: knowledge and history); who anxiously ban books; who use “affirmative action,” “critical race theory,” “DEI,” and “woke” as slurs; who see human dignity as a zero-sum enterprise; who are loyal to despots; and who believe that acceptance, equity, peace, and progress all pose a threat to everything they hold dear.
In light of this, I believe that Vassar’s selection is enormously courageous and I’m very much looking forward to engaging with the community on the subjects of art, politics, liberation, and love. I hope to see you there.
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A Word from the Wise
“And here’s the thing: We know Harris is an imperialist cop. We also know y’all better not fix your mouth to diss the imperialist cop in any way that has anything to do with diminishing her race, gender, and nationality.
We also know that that’s exactly what the worst of white folks are going to do because they love imperialist cops who don’t prosecute them. But they hate Black women. Because Black women have been the resistance, at least in our communities. And no other group of folks in this shitty-ass system vote against their dystopic shit as much as Black women.
Again, anything that the majority of white folks—the worst of white folks—in this place support is the opposite of what their white Jesus wanted textually, and the absolute opposite of of anything resembling repair for living things on Earth. I love beating the worst of white folks in anything. You don’t?
I am from Mississippi, where they do everything to prevent us from organizing, unionizing, drinking clean water, living above poverty. A vote here is literally a blow against premature death. In our tradition, the vote is heavy, but if some tells us that they aren’t voting because they cannot stomach voting for genocide, we might want to say I absolutely understand.
And shut the fuck up.”
End Quote
“A liar always knows he is lying, and that is why liars travel in packs: in order to be reassured that the judgment day will never come for them. They need each other for the well-being, the health, the perpetuation of their lie. They have a tacit agreement to guard each other’s secrets, for they have the same secret.”
—James Baldwin, No Name in the Street
I will have more great news to share soon. Keep watching this space for announcements.
Take good care.
Blessings upon blessings,
Robert