First Year Reading Initiative 2009
Selected Reading: Dreams from My Father by Barack Obama.
Dreams from My Father (1995) tells the story of Barack Obama's struggle to understand the forces that shaped him as the son of a black African father and white American mother—a struggle that takes him from the American heartland to the ancestral home of his great-aunt in the tiny African village of Alego. A searching meditation on the meaning of identity in America, Dreams from My Father might be the most revealing portrait we have of a major American leader.
Dates and Times
Tuesday, August 25, Hill Center 10:00 am
Discussion Questions
To be announced.
Resources
Provided below are some resources to find out more about Dreams from My Father and Barack Obama.
Please note that most of these resources are restricted to IC users--you must either be on campus or have an IC email address and password to view these articles.
Obama and his Book: Dreams from My Father
- Obama: A Life Inside the American Dream
- Dreaming of Obama
- Deconstructing Barry
- The Story of Obama, Written by Obama
- Memoir of a 21st-Century History Maker
- Barack Obama interview on Dreams from my Father, 1995
- Barack Obama discusses Dreams from My Father, 2004
- Barack Obama's Journey
Obama and his Influences
- A Mother's Story
- The Ghost of a Father
- 'Toot': Obama Grandmother a Force that Shaped Him
- On His Own: The Making of a Self-Reliant Man
- Charisma and a Search for Self in Obama's Hawaii Childhood
- When Barry Became Barack
- From Books, New President Found Voice
- Writer Offered a Young Barack Obama Advice on Life
Obama and America
- Barack Obama and America's Journey
- Race in the American Mind: From the Moynihan Report to the Obama Candidacy
- Black Like Obama
- Barack Obama in the Public Imagination
- The Political Movement in Black America by Barack Obama
- Post-Race: What would a Black President Mean for Black Politics?
- Obama, The Instability of Color Lines, and the Promise of a Postethnic Future
First Year Experience Theme: Intellect
Through the components of the First-Year Experience and other programs on campus, first-year students will read about, discuss, and reflect upon issues that relate to intellectual development.
