To celebrate the release of The Fire Inside, our co-op hosts author and scholar Rima Vesely-Flad for a discussion of the radical literary legacies of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde.

Dr. Vesely-Flad will read from the book, take questions from the audience, and sign copies of The Fire Inside.

In The Fire Inside: The Dharma of James Baldwin and Audre Lorde, Rima Vesely-Flad explores the writings of Lorde and Baldwin through a Dharmic lens, revealing for the first time how two of America’s greatest literary voices reflect—and expand—Buddhism’s most timeless truths toward justice and liberation. Offering timely lessons to help us each meet this moment, she explores the writers’ enduring legacies to show that liberation depends not only on organizing and mass movements, but the generative power of inner well-being, authenticity, art, and embodiment.

Rima Vesely-Flad is the Founding Director of the Initiative for Black Buddhist Studies and a Visiting Affiliate Fellow at the Center for Culture, Society, and Religion at Princeton University.

In addition to The Fire Inside, Dr. Vesely-Flad has published Black Buddhists and the Black Radical Tradition: The Practice of Stillness in the Movement for Liberation (New York University Press), which was a finalist for AAR’s Excellence in the Study of Religion, Constructive-Reflective Studies Award. She is also the author of Racial Purity and Dangerous Bodies: Moral Pollution, Black Lives, and the Struggle for Justice (Fortress Press, 2017).