Rich Benjamin, a celebrated author, speaker, political analyst, and cultural anthropologist, will visit Raue Center on May 22, 2022 at 3 p.m. to present The Divided States of America: Big National Transformations, Small Towns. This special presentation and Q&A moderated by James Knight will discuss Benjamin’s personal experiences engaging with communities in small-town America and his deft observations of modern society, culture, and politics with the goal of building understanding and openness.
“I believe that adaptation requires openness,” said Benjamin. “It requires a willingness to understand others, a willingness to understand oneself. And I believe in that willingness comes an openness to change.”
Benjamin’s cultural and political analyses appear regularly in the New York Times, The New Yorker, The Guardian, and on National Public Radio. His scholarly research has received support from the Rockefeller Foundation, the Ford Foundation, Brown University, and the National Endowment for the Humanities. Benjamin has a B.A. in English and Political Science from Wesleyan University and a Ph.D. in Modern Thought and Literature from Stanford University. He sits on the Board of Trustees of the Authors Guild, the national union of writers that has been protecting authors’ rights and free speech since 1912.
Benjamin is the author of Searching for Whitopia: An Improbable Journey to the Heart of White America, which was selected as an Editor’s Choice by Booklist and the American Library Association. This groundbreaking study is one of few to have illuminated in advance the rise of white anxiety and white nationalism in contemporary public U.S. life. Barbara Ehrenreich, the author of Nickel and Dimed, calls Searching for Whitopia “a daring feat of the 21st-century exploration that will have you laughing and shuddering at the same time.” The book is now in its second printing. Benjamin is currently working on a new book, Talk to Me.
Don’t miss this timely discussion with one of America’s finest scholars. For tickets click here.
Raue Center For The Arts
26 N. Williams St.
Crystal Lake, IL 60014
815-356-9212
