Thulani Davis is a journalist, novelist, playwright, and screenwriter. Her latest book, My Confederate Kinfolk, is a memoir exploring her family's black and white roots in America during and after the Civil War. Her other works include novels, plays, and film scripts. She has also written several award-winning PBS documentaries. Davis has been a staff writer and senior editor at The Village Voice and has written for an array of national publications including The New York Times, The Nation, Bomb Magazine, Quarterly Black Review, and Ms.

Educated at Barnard College, the University of Pennsylvania, and Columbia, Davis was the first woman to win a Grammy Award in the liner notes category. She has recently returned to graduate study at New York University, where she also teaches in the Department of Dramatic Writing. Davis, a Buddhist priest ordained in Kyoto, Japan, is a co-founder of the Brooklyn Buddhist Association. She is known for her wide range of interests and passionate engagement with a number of genres.

The talk is the first in the Great Nonfiction Writers Lecture Series, presented biennially by the Nonfiction Writing Program in the Department of English, which will bring four prominent writers to campus this academic year.

Co-sponsored by • Zucker Family Endowment • C.V. Starr Foundation Lectureships Fund • Goldway/Shearer family • Modern Culture & Media and The Malcolm S. Forbes Center for Media and Culture • Africana Studies Department and Rites and Reason Theatre • Department of Theatre, Speech and Dance • Department of American Civilization • Pembroke Center for Teaching and Research on Women • Center for Environmental Studies • Sarah Doyle Women's Center • Literary Arts Program • Committee on Science and Technology Studies