By Julia Hess '15
Siena College will welcome bestselling author Mohsin Hamid on Thursday, September 10. His writing has been featured on bestseller lists, adapted for cinema, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize, selected as a winner of finalist for 20 awards and translated into 35 languages.
Hamid is well known to current Siena students through the First Year Seminar (FYS), a two-semester program that prepares Siena freshman for the intellectual life of college. His books, "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" and "The Reluctant Fundamentalist" have been staples of the program's reading list for the past few years. Siena has brought other notable authors to campus in the past including Julia Alverez, author of "In the Time of the Butterflies."
First Year Seminar Director Meg Woolbright, Ph.D. believes that providing the community with the opportunity to interact with Hamid represents Siena at its best. "Bringing classroom work, and the core Franciscan themes that First Year Seminar program focuses on to life is what we are all about," she said.
"In his remarks, Mohsin Hamid will connect his book "How to Get Filthy Rich in Rising Asia" to contemporary Franciscan issues: environmental degradation, inequalities between different parts of the globe, proverty, violence and war. We will also be able to make good connections to Pope Francis's recent encyclical: Laudate Si," said Woolbright. "By doing this, we hope it will open our freshmen's eyes to crucial problems facing the world today, and help them to realize the important part they can play in solving these problems, by putting the Franciscan heritage to work in their own lives."
This event is co-sponsored by the J. Spencer and Patricia Standish Honors Program, Reinhold Neibuhy Institute for Religion and Culture, the Office of Student Activities and Leadership Development, the Damietta Cross-Cultural Center, the Muslim Student Association and the Asian Student Association. It will be held in the Marcelle Athletic Complex on Thursday, September 10 at 7 p.m., with a book signing to follow at 8 p.m. The event is free and open to the public.
