Nikki Alexander - Arc of the Universe
Presented by Left Bank Books & Left Bank Books Foundation
Left Bank Books is thrilled to bring debut author Nikki Alexander to Left Bank Books. Alexander grew up in St. Louis and is excited to celebrate her new book with the community. Arc of the Universe is a queer, Black, space novel from a Harvard-educated lawyer who has studied race, gender, and outer space.
Alexander will be in conversation with Adrienne Davis, the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis.
Michael McMillian, President and CEO of the Urban League of Metropolitan St. Louis (ULSTL), will provide welcome remarks.
Alexander will personalize and sign copies after the presentation! Personalized and signed copies will be available to be mailed anywhere in the country. For personalized copies, please order before noon on September 29th.
Join us at Left Bank Books
399 N. Euclid Ave
St. Louis, MO 63108
Watch the livestream on Left Bank Books' YouTube Page
https://www.youtube.com/@LeftBankBooks/streams
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About the Speaker
Nikki Alexander is a Harvard educated lawyer who has studied race, gender, and outer space. She strives to tell the story of successful Black women navigating difficult environments in ways that are unexpected in light of traditional narratives, at the same time exploring themes that will appeal to any reader-moral dilemmas, high expectations, and romantic relationships in the face of career and family pressures. When she's not writing, she enjoys tap dancing and attempting to keep her temperamental houseplants alive.
Adrienne Davis is the William M. Van Cleve Professor of Law at Washington University in St. Louis. As a teacher and scholar Davis is a feminist and critical race theorist who focuses on “the law of daily life,” or how law regulates and affects people’s daily interactions, decisions, and identities. She has written extensively on the gendered and private law dimensions of American slavery, the legal regulation of intimacy in its myriad forms, and theories of justice and reparations. She is the co-editor of the books, Black Sexual Economies: Race and Sex in a Culture of Capital and Privilege Revealed: How Invisible Preference Undermines America. She is currently working on projects on race and art markets and how language facilitates or impedes justice. Outside of work, Davis is passionate about the arts and the St. Louis region and embraces opportunities to combine her two loves. She has served on multiple cultural boards of directors and trustees, including the St. Louis Art Museum, Opera Theatre St. Louis, the Pulitzer Arts Foundation, Fashion Fund St. Louis, the St. Louis Visionary Awards, Laumeier Sculpture Park, and december Literary Magazine. Davis has been honored as a St. Louis Woman of Achievement for Arts Advocacy (2017) and St. Louis Business Journal Diverse Business Leader (2020). Davis earned her B.A. and J.D. from Yale University where she served on the Executive Committee of the Yale Law Journal.
About Arc of the Universe
How do you design a system of government from scratch when you've lost faith in government itself?
Carrie Davenport, a renowned constitutional law professor, has the career opportunity of a lifetime. Project Mars, the brainchild of a billionaire tech tycoon, has ambitious plans to establish the first human settlement on Mars. And Project Mars selected her-a Black, queer, publicity-shy professor in North Carolina-to design a system of government for the colony.
Carrie eagerly researches how to craft a suitable constitution for space. But when she is stopped by the police one evening in a case of mistaken identity, the filmed encounter thrusts Carrie into a spotlight she never asked for, putting her at the center of the discourse on race and justice in the US. Suddenly, American democracy doesn't seem like a shining beacon to carry into space. Carrie must decide whether to speak up-against the police violence she endured, the tech-bro culture of Project Mars, and an even deeper underbelly of corruption behind the mission.
Can Carrie regain faith in herself and in society to craft the "government of the future" and prevent the prejudices of Earth from tainting human life beyond?
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