SLU Campus Read
The Campus Read is an opportunity for Saint Louis University students, faculty and staff to read a specific work by the incoming St. Louis Literary Award recipient and take part in related activities connected to the book and author.
Whitehead is the author of the novels “The Intuitionist,” “John Henry Days,” “Apex Hides the Hurt,” “Sag Harbor,” “The Underground Railroad,” “The Nickel Boys,” and “Harlem Shuffle,” among others. He also penned a book of essays about New York City, “The Colossus of New York.”
He graduated from Harvard College and worked as a reviewer of television, books and music at the Village Voice. In addition to the Pulitzer, “The Underground Railroad,” won the National Book Award and the Carnegie Medal for Fiction. “The Nickel Boys” won the Pulitzer Prize, the Kirkus Prize, and the Orwell Prize for Political Fiction.
Whitehead has been a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway, PEN/Faulkner, Hurston/Wright Legacy Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, the Los Angeles Times Fiction Award and has received the Anisfield-Wolf Book Award. He has received a MacArthur Fellowship, a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Whiting Writers Award, the Dos Passos Prize, and a fellowship at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers.
In 2018, Whitehead was named the New York State Author, and in 2020, he was awarded the Prize for American Fiction from the Library of Congress. Whitehead has taught at the University of Houston, Columbia University, New York University and Princeton University. He has also served as a writer-in-residence at Vassar College, the University of Richmond, and the University of Wyoming.
2024-2025 Campus Read
“The Underground Railroad” by Colson Whitehead
In Whitehead’s ingenious conception, the Underground Railroad is no mere metaphor — engineers and conductors operate a secret network of tracks and tunnels beneath the Southern soil. Cora and Caesar’s first stop is South Carolina, in a city that initially seems like a haven. But the city’s placid surface masks an insidious scheme designed for its black denizens. And even worse: Ridgeway, the relentless slave catcher, is close on their heels. Forced to flee again, Cora embarks on a harrowing flight, state by state, seeking true freedom.
As Whitehead brilliantly re-creates the unique terrors for black people in the pre–Civil War era, his narrative seamlessly weaves the saga of America from the brutal importation of Africans to the unfulfilled promises of the present day. "The Underground Railroad" is at once a kinetic adventure tale of one woman’s ferocious will to escape the horrors of bondage and a shattering, powerful meditation on the history we all share.
Campus Read Book Discussions
The Campus Read Book Discussions series explores "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead through engaging conversations led by faculty and experts. Each session examines different themes, including translation, pedagogy, gender, cultural institutions and bioethics, providing participants with a deeper understanding of the novel’s impact.
All events take place from 3 to 4:15 p.m. in the lower-level classroom of Pius XII Memorial Library, 3650 Lindell Blvd.
Sign-up is required to attend these discussions.
Reading "The Underground Railroad" is a powerful, compelling experience that grows in transformative power when explored in a community. Martha Allen and Lisa Fischer invite participants to come to a richer collective understanding of Whitehead’s text by investigating it as a group with access to different cultures, identities, languages, experiences, and perspectives. The group will practice strategies for exploring the text, including naming our membership in privileged and marginalized identity groups, analyzing moments of resonance with the text from different perspectives, and interrogating our emotional responses. We encourage participants to join us in speaking with, listening to and learning from both the text and one another as we journey through Whitehead's novel together.
American Studies associate professor Flannery Burke, Ph.D., and English professor Brian Yothers, Ph.D., will explore how "The Underground Railroad" can be taught in diverse environments — from classrooms to libraries, families, and beyond — highlighting how the context shapes the teaching and learning experience.
Yothers will focus on the pedagogical approaches to 19th-century literature on slavery and freedom. Burke will examine the ways different settings influence how readers engage with the novel. Additionally, the discussion will center on how "The Underground Railroad"'s themes impact readers depending on the environment, offering unique insights into the novel's broader impact.
Colson Whitehead's acclaimed novel "The Underground Railroad" has now been translated into 40 languages. The process of translation, especially of works of historical fiction, is rife with linguistic and artistic considerations necessary to preserve a text's literary style, accuracy and emotional impact. This session provides an opportunity for Bilingual Billikens to discuss the art of translation of the French and Spanish editions of this year's campus read. Break-out groups will be led by faculty from the Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures. Participants should pre-register for this event in order to receive a Spanish or French version of the novel.
Join Fran Pestello, Ph.D., and Ted Ibur for an engaging discussion of the 2025 St. Louis Literary Award recipient, Colson Whitehead's "The Underground Railroad." Pestello and Ibur will explore themes of gender, resilience and how cultural and social institutions shape Cora's journey. The discussion focuses on the novel's parallels to contemporary challenges and its unique insights into resistance, determination, and ultimately — survival. "Resistance, Resilience, and Representation: Gender and Institutions in The Underground Railroad" provides the SLU community with an opportunity to explore one of the most thought-provoking works of modern literature.
Join Health Care Ethics professors, Jason Eberl, Ph.D., and Yolonda Wilson, Ph.D., for an insightful discussion on the complex bioethical themes presented in "The Underground Railroad" by Colson Whitehead, which reflect the painful intersection of race, medicine, and power. Through the lens of this haunting narrative, we will explore how historical and contemporary bioethical issues — such as racial injustice in biomedical research, involuntary sterilization, eugenics, and the exploitation of Black bodies in anatomical dissection — are woven into the fabric of the story.