As incoming SMU students prepare to settle into their on-campus homes, they will examine the life experiences of those who can’t afford to stay in theirs. Evicted: Poverty and Profit in the American City, by Matthew Desmond, which won the 2017 Pulitzer Prize for nonfiction, is the 2017 SMU Reads selection and first reading assignment for the class of 2021.
Community members, alumni, book lovers and book clubs are encouraged to join students in reading the book, and come to campus to hear the author discuss it at a free public forum at 6 p.m. Thursday, August 24 at SMU’s McFarlin Auditorium. Register for the event at smu.edu/SMU Reads.
Author Desmond, an associate professor of social sciences at Harvard University, knows firsthand the trauma of eviction. The bank foreclosed on his family’s Arizona home while he was attending college on scholarship. Since then, he has devoted his research to the intersection of poverty, race and gender in American life.
Read more at SMU News.