Richard is a contributing editor at New America Media in San Francisco. He writes regularly for several newspapers and magazines, both in the United States and in England. He has also written an autobiographical trilogy on class, ethnicity and race: Hunger of Memory, Days of Obligation: An Argument With My Mexican Father, and Brown: The Last Discovery of America. Rodriguez received a 1997 George Foster Peabody Award for his NewsHour essays on American life. His other awards include the Frankel Medal from the National Endowment for the Humanities and the International Journalism Award from the World Affairs Council of California. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize in non-fiction; and the National Book Critics’ Award.

As a part of our multidisciplinary project, he will discuss themes explored in his book Brown: The Last Discovery of America.

“I think brown marks a reunion of peoples, an end to ancient wanderings. Rival cultures and creeds conspire with Spring to create children of a beauty, perhaps of a harmony, previously unknown. Or long forgotten. ”