This year's lecture, “American Studies and The Old Neighborhood,” asks what is a neighborhood? It's a place—buildings, streets, the familiar landscape of home. But it’s also people who must work together to create a community that's always both pulling together and coming apart. In his latest book, The World Is Always Coming to an End:  Pulling Together and Apart in a Chicago Neighborhood, Carlo Rotella returns to South Shore, the neighborhood on the South Side of Chicago where he grew up in the 1970s, to explore how a neighborhood works and what it means to the people who live there.

The Richardson American Studies Lecture Series was created through the generous gift of Mrs. Eudora Richardson (C’84) (1931-2021).