New Dominion Bookshop to host talk on Substance of Fire: Gender and Race in the College Classroom

New Dominion Bookshop in Charlottesville will host a book talk and signing with Claire Millikin and Blake Calhoun on Friday, Feb. 22, at 7 p.m.

Millikin and Calhoun will be discussing their book, Substance of Fire: Gender and Race in the College Classroom. This event is free to attend.

Substance of Fire is an original, creative response to the ongoing challenges of the search for race and gender equality in the college classroom and specifically at the University of Virginia. Written partly in response to the events of August 11 and 12 in Charlottesville, the book takes in a wider scope, drawing on personal essay, memoir, poetry, and photography to look at some of the forces that have placed our community in the national spotlight of race relations. The book is published by 2Leaf Press, a New York City press committed to publishing works of social justice and diversity. Edited by Sean Frederick Forbes, the book includes contributions from Richard Delgado, Riley Blanks, Rox Trujillo, and Joseph Rodriguez.

Claire Millikin has taught at the University of Virginia since 2007. She is the author of eleven books of scholarship and poetry. Her works include Witnessing Sadism in Texts of the American South (Routledge, 2014), After Houses: Poetry for the Homeless (2Leaf Press), and Television (Unicorn Press, 2016). She is currently a lecturer for the Program in Art History and a visiting scholar with the Department of English at the University of Virginia.

Blake Calhoun, a UVA alum (2015) and Serpentine Society member,  currently serves as Assistant Director of Academic Success in the University of Virginia’s School of Engineering.