Branding and Freedom in the Market Economy: A Conversation with Calvin Baker and Colson Whitehead March 30, 2007

The event is free, and will involve short readings from the authors and a conversation about some common themes in their most recent novels. It will last approximately one hour.

Calvin Baker is the author of three novels, including, most recently, "Dominion," in which a freed slave buys the only land white people will sell him -- untamed, haunted land -- and fights off a ghost, Ould Lowe, to build a plantation he can pass along to his children. His progeny enhance their wealth by buying a slave of their own. "'Dominion' leads us through yet another hidden door in the haunted manion of our country's history," Francisco Goldman has said. "This incantatory, poetic, staring, thoughtful novel is a heroic act of exploration, feeling, and imagination."


Colson Whitehead has written three novels and a collection of essays. His latest effort, "Apex Hides the Hurt," is a new-millennium story that shares themes with Baker's book. A branding expert who invented a catchy name - Apex - for shoddy multiracial band-aids ends up loathing himself when the product becomes a success. Now he's taken on what may be his last assignment: renaming a town founded by freed men. Whitehead serves up a fascinating inquiry into truth, identity and the use of language in the market economy.

Maud Newton, the host of the discussion, has written for The American Prospect, the New York Times Book Review, the Washington Post, the Boston Globe, Newsday, and other publications, but is best known for her website, MaudNewton.com.