Common Book

Each year at Dallas College, students, faculty and staff come together to read a selected book through the Common Book program. Conversations and activities related to the book's themes build a sense of community across each campus.

Activities includes film screenings, lectures, workshops, author Q&As and contests. Additionally, instructors may incorporate the book into their lesson plans and assignments. Previous Common Book selections have included "The Martian," by Andy Weir, "March: Book One," by John Lewis and Andrew Aydin, and "It Happened on the Way to War: A Marine's Path to Peace," by Rye Barcott.

The Common Book Experience aims to create engaging, thought-provoking dialogue across the Dallas College Community. If you'd like to participate in the planning process, please fill out our General Interest form!

Save the Date! Common Book Author Meet and Greet

Meet with Isabel Wilkerson, author of our common book, “Caste: The Origins of Our Discontent” on Wednesday, March 1. This is event is free for all Dallas College students, faculty and staff. Members of the community may attend the 7 - 8 p.m. virtual event.

This event is presented by Dallas College Special Academic Programs and Dallas College Diversity, Equity and Inclusion, in partnership with the Dallas College Learning Commons. For more information, please email Toniette Robinson at tonietter@dallascollege.edu.

In Person

11 a.m. - 1 p.m., Brookhaven Campus
Performance Hall (Building C, Room C210)

Virtual

11 a.m. - 1 p.m. | streamed live from Brookhaven Campus
7 - 8 p.m. | streamed live from World Affairs Council event

book cover of caste the origins of our discontents

Common Book Selection

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents
by Isabel Wilkerson
(for use during academic years 2021-2023)

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents posits the theory that racism in the United States, and the resultant stratification of society, is a de facto caste system characterized by presumptions about inclusion/exclusion, purity, and inherent superiority and inferiority. This book has been selected as the 2021-2023 Common Book by an interdisciplinary group of faculty, staff, and administration from across the school and campuses.

Need a copy? Visit your Dallas College Learning Commons Library to check one out.

About the Author

Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents is not the first New York Times bestseller from author Isabel Wilkerson. This Pulitzer Prize and the National Humanities Medal winner is also the author of The Warmth of Other Suns, named to more than 30 “Best of the Year” lists including The New Yorker, NY Times, Washington Post and Los Angeles Times.

Wilkerson won the Pulitzer Prize in 1994, making her the first black woman in the history of American journalism to do so and the first African-American to win for individual reporting. Read more about Isabel Wilkerson.

"The price of privilege is the moral duty to act when one sees another person treated unfairly. And the least that a person in the dominant caste can do is not make the pain any worse." - Isabel Wilkerson, author