Join the President's Book Club Featuring Trinity's Distinguished Authors

We are delighted to invite you to the inaugural President’s Summer Book Club. This will be an opportunity to gather in thoughtful dialogue around timely and engaging works by two of Trinity’s distinguished faculty members: English professor Andrew Porter, MFA, author of The Imagined Life, and political science professor Shannon L. Mariotti, Ph.D., author of Contemplative Democracy: Politics, Practice, and Pedagogy.

Hosted by President Beasley, each session will provide an opportunity to explore ideas, share perspectives, and connect.  

Registration is now open for both sessions. The first 10 participants to register will receive a complimentary copy of the selected book for their chosen option and will be notified via email about when they can pick up their copy. Please note: If you are registering for both, you are only eligible to receive one complimentary book. 

Details at a glance:

• Registration: The Imagined Life
  • Monday, August 11
  • 11 a.m. - 1 p.m.
• Registration: Contemplative Democracy: Politics, Practice, and Pedagogy
  • Monday, August 18
  • 12 p.m. - 2 p.m.
• Location: We plan for the discussions to be held at President Beasley’s residence. If the location changes due to space constraints, we will let registrants know via email on the Friday before the meeting.
• Deadlines: Registration will remain open until noon on the Friday before each meeting (August 8 and 15, respectively). Click the link above to access the session you would like to attend. 

Hear from the authors themselves:

Professor Porter: “The Imagined Life is about a man named Steven Mills who decides at age fifty to go back and try to figure out what happened to his father, a brilliant professor, who disappeared abruptly and mysteriously in 1984 when Steven was 12. Set in California, the novel toggles back and forth between Steven’s present-day journey and his memories from 1984 in the months preceding his father’s disappearance.”

Professor Mariotti: “Contemplative Democracy: Politics, Practice, and Pedagogy asks the question, what is the value of the attentional ecologies created by the 'Mindfulness Revolution'? Reimagining the work of political theory, employing feminist approaches, and with a focus on educational spaces and democratic modes of pedagogy, Mariotti examines contemplative practices as spaces where ordinary people do the work of democracy, creating new political imaginaries, finding new selves, and founding new states of being. Contemplative Democracy reveals how the larger body politic may be reshaped by the everyday work people do in their own bodies."

We hope you will join us for these thoughtful summer discussions.