By subject Government and Law "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights" is summer reading program choice for 2008
| "Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights" is summer reading program choice for 2008 |
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| Friday, February 08, 2008 | |
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The 2008 Summer Reading Program Book Selection Committee at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has selected “Covering: The Hidden Assault on Our Civil Rights” by Kenji Yoshino. As part of its summer reading program, UNC asks all first-year and incoming transfer students to read a book over the summer and participate in small group discussions led by faculty and staff once they arrive on campus. The non-credit assignment, an academic icebreaker, stimulates critical thinking outside the classroom environment and encourages new students to engage in the academic community. Carolina’s program focuses on discussion and dialogue, creating an intellectual climate in which students can come to their own conclusions and turn information into insight. Yoshino, the Guido Calabresi Professor of Law at Yale University, specializes in constitutional law, law and literature, and Japanese law and society. In “Covering,” published in 2006, he uses his identity as Japanese-American and gay to illustrate sociologist Erving Goffman’s notion of “covering” – downplaying stigmatizing identities in order to assimilate to the cultural mainstream. Yoshino challenges ideas about minority rights and the sometimes-damaging effects of social integration. A nine-member book selection committee of students, faculty and staff began meeting last fall to consider books for this year’s program. Committee chairman Peter A. Coclanis, associate provost for international affairs and Albert A. Newsome Professor of History, said the book would push students to rethink the definition of equality and how “covering” degrades everyone’s civil rights. “Kenji Yoshino’s book forces readers to confront important issues relating to what we mean by equality and social justice, important themes indeed during a time when many mistakenly believe we live in the ‘post-civil rights era’,” Coclanis said. “It is both rigorously put and beautifully rendered. “This book offers an excellent introduction to what rigorous critical inquiry is like at the university level. And the central topics treated – identity and self-expression – are central to most 18- and 19-year-olds.” The committee chose “Covering” from more than 160 suggestions made by 224 students, alumni, faculty and community members. Four other books were considered as finalists: “A Home on the Field” by Paul Cuadros, an assistant professor in the School of Journalism and Mass Communication; “A Long Way Gone” by Ishmael Beah; “Escape from Slavery” by Francis Bok; and “The Looming Tower” by Lawrence Wright. Since 1999, the summer reading program choices have been “There Are No Children Here” by Alex Kotlowitz; “Confederates in the Attic” by Tony Horwitz; “The Spirit Catches You and You Fall Down” by Anne Fadiman; “Approaching the Qur’an” by Michael Sells; “Nickel and Dimed: On (Not) Getting By in America” by Barbara Ehrenreich; “Absolutely American: Four Years at West Point” by David Lipsky; “Blood Done Sign My Name” by Timothy B. Tyson; “The Namesake” by Jhumpa Lahiri; and “The Death of the Innocents: An Eyewitness Account of Wrongful Executions” by Sister Helen Prejean. Note: Coclanis can be reached at This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it Summer Reading Program Web site: www.unc.edu/srp/ News Services contact: Lisa Katz, (919) 962-2093, This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it |