Thomas Chatterton Williams

Hannah Arendt Center Senior Fellow; Visiting Professor of Humanities (Spring 2023)

Biography: Thomas Chatterton Williams is the author of the memoirs Self-Portrait in Black and White: Unlearning Race (W. W. Norton and Company, 2019) and Losing My Cool: How a Father’s Love and 15,000 Books Beat Hip-Hop Culture (Penguin Press HC, 2010). His next book, Nothing Was the Same: The Pandemic Summer of George Floyd and the Shift in Western Consciousness, will be published by Knopf. Williams, named a 2022 Guggenheim Fellow for his work in general nonfiction, is also a contributing writer for The Atlantic and New York Times Magazine. An adaptation of Self-Portrait was published in the New York Times in September 2019, titled: “My Family’s Life Inside and Outside America’s Racial Categories.” His writing has also appeared in the New Yorker, Le Monde, the Guardian, Harper’s, London Review of Books, and the collections Best American Essays and Best American Travel Writing. A 2007 op-ed piece for the Washington Post, “Yes, Blame Hip-Hop,” generated a record-breaking number of comments. He is also the recipient of a Berlin Prize and has received support from Yaddo, the MacDowell Colony, and the American Academy in Berlin, where is a member of the Board of Trustees.

BA, Georgetown University; MA, New York University. At Bard: 2018–20; 2022– .
Website: https://www.thomaschattertonwilliams.com
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Department: Hannah Arendt Center