Each academic year, the Loyola University Chicago community reads the same book as a shared experience to foster meaningful discussion and engagement on important issues that impact our community.

The 2021-2023 Rambler Read is Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom. In eight treatises on beauty, media, money, and more, McMillan Cottom is unapologetically “thick.” Deemed “thick where I should have been thin, more where I should have been less,” McMillan Cottom refuses to shy away from blending the personal with the political, from bringing her full self and voice to the fore of her analytical work. Thick “transforms narrative moments into analyses of whiteness, black misogyny, and status-signaling as means of survival for black women” with “writing that is as deft as it is amusing.”

 

New students will receive a copy of the book at New Student Convocation in August and be encouraged to read it during the academic year in classes like UCWR 110. The University community will also get to hear from Dr. McMillan Cottom when she visits the Lake Shore Campus on Wednesday, February 23, 2022. 

You can access a reading guide from the Publisher here, and the 2021-2023 Teaching and Learning Guide here. 

For more information about the Rambler Read, or to request a review copy, please contact New Student Programs at firstyearexperience@luc.edu.

The Rambler Read Committee includes representatives from:

• Center for Engaged Learning, Teaching, and Scholarship
• Division of Student Development
• Living-Learning Communities
• Mission Integration
• New Student Programs
• Office of the President
• Office of the Provost
• Student Academic Services
• Undergraduate and graduate students
• University Core
• University Libraries
• Writing Program