Author Talk: The Origins of Critical Race Theory

Join Aja Martinez and Robert Smith in the store for a discussion of their book The Origins of Critical Race Theory: The People and Ideas That Created a Movement. In addition to introducing readers to the tenets and key insights of critical race theory, Martinez and Smith explore the lives and intellectual influences of the movement’s founders, shedding light on how the many components of critical race theory eventually formed into a movement.

Aja Y. Martinez (she/her) is an Associate Professor of Latina/Latino Studies at University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. Her scholarship, published nationally and internationally, makes a compelling case for counterstory as methodology through the well-established framework of critical race theory (CRT). Dr. Martinez is author of the multi-award-winning book Counterstory: The Rhetoric and Writing of Critical Race Theory and is co-author, with Dr. Robert O. Smith (UNT History), of several forthcoming titles on the storied histories of CRT. Dr.…