On Monday, September 19, professor of African American Studies at Princeton University Imani Perry will deliver a presentation, “South to America: a Journey below the Mason Dixon to Understand the Soul of a Nation,” as part of Claremont McKenna College’s ongoing Athenaeum speaker series. The free 6:45 p.m. talk is open to the public and will held at the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, 385 E. Eighth St., Claremont.

Perry’s talk will explore the history and meaning of America which is “inextricably linked with the South,” a news release said. “We all think we know the South. Even those who have never lived there can rattle off a list of signifiers: the Civil War, ‘Gone with the Wind,’ the Ku Klux Klan, plantations, football, Jim Crow, slavery. But the idiosyncrasies, dispositions, and habits of the region are stranger and more complex than much of the country tends to acknowledge.”

Professor Perry is the author of six books, including “Breathe: A Letter to My Sons” (Beacon Press, 2019) which was a finalist for the 2020 Chautauqua Prize and the NAACP Image Award for excellence in nonfiction. Her writings focus primarily on the history of Black thought, art, and imagination “crafted in response to, and resistance against, the social, political, and legal realities of domination in the West.” Perry seeks to understand the processes of “retrenchment after moments of social progress, and how freedom dreams are nevertheless sustained.”

For more information about the talk, visit cmc.edu/athenaeum/south-america-journey-below-mason-dixon-understand-soul-nation or call CMC at (909) 621-8244.