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Our lens on history powerfully influences how we envision and shape the future. Join two of our country's most accomplished storytellers, Ken Burns and Isabel Wilkerson, as they discuss the complexities of the American narrative and how grappling with the past might lead us forward. 

Journalist Isabel Wilkerson was awarded the National Humanities Medal by President Barack Obama in 2016 “for championing the stories of an unsung history.” The first African-American woman to win a Pulitzer Prize in journalism, her book The Warmth of Other Suns, a sweeping and intimate examination of the Great Migration, won the National Book Critics Circle Award for Nonfiction. Her new book, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents, examines the entrenched hierarchies that shape American life. Told through intimate personal narratives and deeply researched history, Wilkerson examines the ties between the American caste system and those in India and Nazi Germany, and points to ways America can move beyond our artificial and destructive human divisions, toward hope in our common humanity.

Ken Burns has been making documentary films for over forty years. Since the Academy Award nominated Brooklyn Bridge in 1981, he has gone on to direct and produce some of the most acclaimed historical documentaries ever made, including The Civil War; Baseball; Jazz; The War; The National Parks: America’s Best Idea; The Roosevelts: An Intimate History; Jackie Robinson; Unforgivable Blackness: The Rise and Fall of Jack Johnson; The Vietnam War; The Central Park Five; and Country Music. His films have been honored with dozens of major awards, including sixteen Emmy Awards, two Grammy Awards, two Oscar nominations; and a Lifetime Achievement Award from the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences. His new website UNUM rearranges clips from his past films into playlists to add historical context to the present.

This conversation will be moderated by Lynette Clemetson, Director of Wallace House, Knight-Wallace Fellowships and the Livingston Awards at the University of Michigan. A longtime journalist, she was a correspondent for Newsweek magazine in the U.S. and Asia, a national correspondent for The New York Times, and senior director of strategy and new initiatives at NPR. Wallace House works to sustain and elevate the careers of journalists, foster civic engagement, and uphold the role of a free press in democratic society. 

This event is part of the Democracy & Debate theme semester with support from Wallace House and UMMA.

Notice of uncensored content: In accordance with the University of Michigan’s Standard Practice Guidelines on “Freedom of Speech and Artistic Expression,” the Penny Stamps Speaker Series does not censor our speakers or their content. The content provided is intended for adult audiences and does not reflect the views of the University of Michigan or Detroit Public Television.

UMMA's Vote2020 initiative is presented in connection with the U-M Democracy & Debate theme semester. Thanks to our partners at the Penny Stamps School of Art & Design, the Ginsberg Center for Community Service & Learning, the Ann Arbor City Clerk's Office, and the Center for World Performance Studies.