Renowned cultural critic and essayist Thomas Chatterton Williams will headline Fairfield University’s Inspired Writers Series on Tuesday, Sept. 30 at 7:30 p.m. at the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts.
— an announcement from Fairfield University
In a conversation titled Thomas Chatterton Williams and the Summer of Our Discontent, Williams will join National Book Award winner Professor Phil Klay, for an evening of timely discussion.
Williams’ Recent Books
Thomas Chatterton Williams
Williams is also the author of two highly acclaimed books: Self-Portrait in Black and White: Family, Fatherhood, and Rethinking Race, a TIME “Must Read” book, and Losing My Cool: Love, Literature, and a Black Man’s Escape from the Crowd.
The evening’s conversation will include themes from Williams’ new book, Summer of Our Discontent, which explores how various existential crises plaguing the American liberal tradition came to a head during 2020—a year in which COVID, the George Floyd protests, the presidency of Donald Trump, and social media paved the way for a paradigm shift in American politics and culture.
The book, which debuted in August 2025 and offers a timely meditation on freedom of thought, the tension between principle and partisanship, and the evolving boundaries of public discourse.
If You’re Going …
The event takes place at 7:30 p.m., Tuesday, Sept. 30 at the Wein Experimental Theatre in the Regina A. Quick Center for the Arts at Fairfield University. Tickets cost $20 ($10 for Quick members an free for Fairfield University students). You can buy tickets here.
More About Thomas Chatterton Williams
A visiting professor of the humanities and senior fellow at the Hannah Arendt Center at Bard College, Williams is a contributing writer at The Atlantic.
Previously a columnist at Harper’s and a contributing writer for The New York Times Magazine, his work has also appeared in The New Yorker, London Review of Books, Le Monde, and numerous other publications, and has been collected in The Best American Essays and The Best American Travel Writing.
A 2022 Guggenheim fellow and recipient of the Berlin Prize from The American Academy in Berlin, he was also a 2019 New America national fellow and is currently a visiting fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.
Thomas Chatterton Williams’ Wikipedia article.