this year's Diversity Common Reader Program virtual keynote event will be held at 7pm on Wednesday, April 21. This event will feature NMU students Suzy Stephens and Stephanie Dye, winners of the inaugural Passages North / DCRP Writing Contest, as well Dr. Kette Thomas, Associate Professor of Diverse Literature at Michigan Technological University. Dr. Thomas's work centers on questions regarding identity, agency, and language. She places special emphasis on religion, myth, folklore, autobiography, film, creative essays and the novel and does research on rhetorical and representational models of human rights violations. In her keynote lecture, "Examining Grief, Testimony, and Ritual," she will discuss the rhetorical structure and effects of expressions of grief and testimony in the context of systemic racism.
