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THE STRUGGLE
FOR AMERICA'S FUTURE

Telling the Truth 2023

5:30 p.m. Friday, November 17, 2023

Page Hall, 135 Western Avenue,

Downtown UAlbany campus

See map

Join us for discussions with major thinkers and journalists representing a variety of viewpoints about the present and future of our nation.

The American Presidency:
A conversation about the Biden administration and the prospect of a second Trump administration

Moderator: NYS Writers Institute Opalka Endowed Director Paul Grondahl, longtime Albany Times Union journalist and author of I Rose like a Rocket: The Political Education of Theodore Roosevelt.
 

Franklin Foer, The Last Politician book cover
Franklin Foer, credit Evy Mages

Franklin Foer is the author of The Last Politician: Inside Joe Biden’s White House and the Struggle for America’s Future (2023), the definitive insider story of the first two years of the Biden presidency, with exclusive access to Biden’s longtime team of advisers, and a gripping portrait of a president during this momentous time in our nation’s history.

Foer is a staff writer at The Atlantic, and former editor of The New Republic.

Miles Taylor, Blowback book cover
Miles Taylor

Miles Taylor, White House whistleblower and security expert, served as chief of staff at the US Department of Homeland Security under President Trump. He is best-known for his “Anonymous” essay, titled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration,” published in the New York Times in Sept. 2018. His #1 national bestseller, A Warning by Anonymous, was published in 2019. His new book is Blowback: A Warning to Save Democracy from the Next Trump (July 2023).

The American Backlash:
A conversation about the politics of revenge, and the impulse to punish “out groups” who have made political gains -- particularly racial, sexual, and cultural minorities, and women. 

Moderator: Libby Post, President of Communication Services and an advocate for the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender community. She is the founder of the Empire State Pride Agenda.
 

Juliet Hooker, Black Grief White Grievance book cover
Juliet Hooker

Juliet Hooker, noted political scientist, is the author of the acclaimed new book, Black Grief/White Grievance: The Politics of Loss (Oct. 2023). Jelani Cobb called it, "every bit as stark and urgent as the moment of racial reckoning that inspired it." Her 2017 book, Theorizing Race in the Americas, won the "Ralph Bunche Book Award" and "Best Book on Race, Ethnicity and Politics" of the American Political Science Association.

Jeff Sharlet, The Undertow copy.jpg
Jeff Sharlet

Jeff Sharlet's newest book is The Undertow: Scenes from a Slow Civil War (W.W. Norton, March 2023). The New York Times praised it as a "riveting, vividly detailed collage of political and moral derangement in America, one that horrifyingly corresponds to liberals’ worst fears." He also wrote The Family:

The Secret Fundamentalism at the Heart of American Power, and C Street: The Fundamentalist Threat to American Democracy. 

Previous "Telling the Truth" events were held in 199120172020 in 2022.

Major support and funding provided by The Professor Ben-Ami Lipetz NYS Writers Institute Fund.

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