- Pritzker Fellows
- Former Fellows
- Sarah Smarsh
Sarah Smarsh
Author & Journalist
Sarah Smarsh is a journalist who has covered socioeconomic class, public policy and rural issues for The New York Times, National Geographic, Harper’s, The New Yorker, Columbia Journalism Review, and many other publications. Smarsh’s first book, "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth" (Scribner, 2018), was a New York Times bestseller, a finalist for the National Book Award, winner of the Chicago Tribune Literary Prize, a National Endowment for the Arts Big Read selection, and a favorite-books-of-the-year pick by President Barack Obama.
Born to a teenage mother and a wheat farmer in rural Kansas, Smarsh was a first-generation college student who lived much of her life in poverty. She has spoken on economic inequality and rurality at venues such as the U.S. Senate Democrats Rural Summit, the Clinton School of Public Service, the Aspen Ideas Festival, Sydney Opera House and Edinburgh International Book Festival. She is a frequent political commentator, appearing on shows such as PBS NewsHour, NPR’s 1A, and CNN Newsroom.
Smarsh was a Shorenstein Fellow at Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government in 2018 and is a former associate professor of English. She holds an MFA in nonfiction writing from Columbia University and degrees in journalism and English from the University of Kansas. Her latest book, "She Come By It Natural: Dolly Parton and the Women Who Lived Her Songs" (Scribner, 2020), was a finalist for the National Book Critics Circle Award. She lives in Kansas.
Seminars
"The Class Conundrum: Socioeconomic Inequality in a Purported Meritocracy"
Long ignored and even denied in the United States, socioeconomic class has become a critical issue in our political and cultural spheres. Attempting to explain related tears in the social fabric, politicians and commentators have seized on simplistic, misleading binary frameworks such as “rural-urban divide,” “red-versus-blue,” or “educated and uneducated.” The reality is far more complicated - and those categories far less homogenous - than headlines suggest. Meanwhile, class intersects with race, gender, region and other identities in ways that prevailing narratives fail to capture, in part due to societal discomfort with economic inequality as a worthy concern in its own right. We will seek a truer articulation of class while examining its treatment by the left and right - and its potential role in this perilous moment for democracy.
What do we know about socioeconomic class as it relates to politics? What do we assume we know? What are our class identities, blind spots and biases? We will inspect and, if necessary, repair our foundation for an intersectional understanding of class before attempting to build upon it.
The so-called rural-urban divide looms large in today’s political calculations and cultural assumptions. Red and blue electoral maps at state and county levels reveal consequential gulfs of identity and ideology between city and country. However, such maps fall flat at conveying the whole story; most Trump voters were urban or suburban whites, for instance, while progressive, working-class activism is alive in many “red” and rural spaces. We will move beyond the familiar caricature of the white, working-class conservative to discuss the reality of rural America - an immense, complicated space that is by no means a political, racial or cultural monolith.
Special Guest: Dr. Veronica Womack, Executive Director of the Rural Studies Institute at Georgia College and State University
Suggested Listening, Reading & Viewing:
- “How The White House COVID-19 Relief Plan Aims To Help Georgia's Black Farmers” | Georgia Public Broadcasting
- “On the Richness of Rural,” | The Homecomers with Sarah Smarsh Podcast
- Abandonment in Dixie: Underdevelopment in the Black Belt | Veronica Womack
- Gather | Netflix
For well over a century, industry has siphoned talent and labor to urban centers. This “rural flight” has resulted in population loss, hospital and school closures and economic blight for small communities across the country. Socioeconomic class has always been tied to place, to some extent, as some locations carry more prestige, power and wealth than others, but today many inhabitants of small towns, rural lands and tribal communities are fighting to merely survive. We will look at the connection between place and class, strategies to reinvigorate ailing spaces, and why it matters to all of us.
Special Guest: Benya Kraus, Co-Founder of Lead for America
Suggested Reading & Viewing:
- “Asian Americans in Rural America” | Minnesota Women’s Press
- “Small Town Natives Are Moving Back Home”| Wall Street Journal
- “Hollow” | Elaine McMillion Sheldon
As liberalism, progressivism, the Democratic Party and other political entities engage in messaging, policy, candidate endorsement, resource investment and general discourse, class presents in myriad ways. Increasingly, these coalitions are perceived as more highly educated and even “elite”; meanwhile, populism, once the province of labor, suffrage and other progressive causes, today is routinely conflated with conservatism. We will look at the direct and indirect forces that shape the left’s handling - or mishandling - of class and, thereby, election and policy outcomes.
Special Guest: James Thompson, Civil Rights Attorney, U.S. Army Veteran and former U.S. Congressional Candidate (KS-04)
Suggested Reading:
- “They Thought This Was Trump Country—Hell No” | The Guardian
- Where We Stand: Class Matters | Bell Hooks
While the Republican Party is undergoing an identity crisis in the post-Trump era, with moderates losing ground to an increasingly mainstream “far right” that often weaponizes class, traditional or moderate conservatism has directly acknowledged and leveraged class as a political tool for decades. We will look at the ways class presents on the right today - its brand, its goals, its elected officials and constituents - while considering the future of historically conservative values such as states’ rights and localism.
Special Guest: Grace Olmstead, Journalist and Author of "Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind"
Suggested Listening & Reading:
- “An Appalled Conservative Considers the Future of the Republican Party”The Ezra Klein Show
- Uprooted: Recovering the Legacy of the Places We’ve Left Behind | Grace Olmstead
Books, television, film, journalism and other media forms often ignore class or represent it in problematic ways. Media makers, on the whole, have more class privilege than the broader population, leaving them with blind spots and biases that result in classist narratives that shape our society, culture and policies. We will discuss the forces shaping those narratives, as well as the imperative to bring class awareness to our roles as media makers and consumers in the digital era.
Special Guests: Jessica Bruder, Journalist and Author of "Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century"; and Beth Macy, Journalist and Author of "Dopesick: Dealers, Doctors and the Drug Company that Addicted America"
Suggested Reading:
- "Book Excerpt: Nomadland" | Columbia Magazine
- "Book Excerpt: Dopesick" | Flavorwire
Wealth inequality has reached historic, untenable levels, in the United States and around the world. Perhaps not coincidentally, democracies around the world - including ours - are in an apparent state of decline. Historically, the rise and fall of political structures is often linked to their class structures, which intertwine with systemic racism and other unjust hierarchies. We will discuss how to build a more class-conscious world while juggling concurrent crises around climate, health, race, immigration and more.
Special Guests: Rep. Sharice Davids, U.S. Congresswoman (KS-03); and Rev. Dr. Liz Theoharis, Co-Chair of the Poor People's Campaign
Suggested Reading:
Let's take stock of information and discussions had over the past two months. How have our definitions and understandings around class changed? We will discuss specific ways to apply a honed glass consciousness in our work, scholarship, leadership and even private lives - all of which shape the ever-evolving public and political landscape.
Suggested Reading:
- “How Does Your Company Support First-Generation Professionals?” | Harvard Business Review
- Anti-Oppression Guide: Anti-Classism | Penn College
- Red Dirt: Growing Up Okie | Roxane Dunbar-Ortiz