Claudia Rankine's bold new book recounts mounting racial aggressions in ongoing encounters in twenty-first-century daily life and in the media. Some of these encounters are slights, seeming slips of the tongue, and some are intentional offensives in the classroom, at the supermarket, at home, on the tennis court with Serena Williams and the soccer field with Zinedine Zidane, online, on TV-everywhere, all the time. The accumulative stresses come to bear on a person's ability to speak, perform, and stay alive. Our addressability is tied to the state of our belonging, Rankine argues, as are our assumptions and expectations of citizenship. In essay, image, and poetry, Citizen is a powerful testament to the individual and collective effects of racism in our contemporary, often named "post-race" society.

Review from Eloise: In keeping with shifts of all kinds, Claudia Rankine presents a powerful exploration of race, identity, and systemic injustice in modern America. She works to present and confront encounters of racial microaggressions, violence, and the weight of history through a blend of poetry, essay, and visual imagery. While not necessarily a ‘comfortable’ read, we are drawn to reflect on how racism shapes the emotional and psychological landscape of individuals and communities. Rankine helps us see the layers behind pop-culture events, asking us to engage with the pain, anger, and exhaustion of living in a society that marginalizes and dehumanizes. Engaging with texts, such as these, we are able to further (or challenge) our own perspectives.

Our age is a triumph of codification. We own devices that bring the world to the command of our fingertips. We have access to boundless information and prodigious quantities of stuff. We decide to like or not, to believe or not, to buy or not. We pick and choose. We think we are free. Yet all around us, in pop culture, politics, mainstream media, and advertising, there are codes and symbols that govern our choices. They are the fabrications of consumer society. They express myths of success, well-being, or happiness. As Barthes sees it, these myths must be carefully deciphered, and debunked.

Review from Eloise: Who doesn’t appreciate a book of short essays?! Mythologies is a collection of just that, dissecting the ‘myths’ of modern life, and showing how cultural signs and symbols are used to create meaning that reinforce social principles. The smallest details can be loaded with hidden messages that are there to serve dominant ideology. By drawing attention to these ‘myths’ we are able to see through the media-saturated environment, where the messages we consume are often layered with implicit social and political agendas. This book is one of my defenses against the age of media that is impossible to escape.