Free tickets are now available for the highly anticipated UO School of Journalism and Communication's 2017 Ruhl Lecture.

With a direct tie-in to this year’s Common Reading Program, attendance is expected to be large for acclaimed author Ta-Nehisi Coates’ visit at 6 p.m. Friday, Feb. 3, in Matthew Knight Arena.

Coates is the author of “Between the World and Me,” winner of the 2015 National Book Award for nonfiction. This year’s first-year students and others across campus have been reading and discussing the book over the course of the current school year.

The work confronts many of the most challenging aspects of race in modern America. Coates’ lecture, titled “A Deeper Black: Race in America,” will tackle the systemic racism and racist policies that have been inseparable from the growth of the nation.

Known for engaging his audiences in meaningful discussions about what it means to talk about race today, Coates covers current events as well as themes from his writing. He also explores questions such as how to reconcile the deeply entrenched and ongoing racist acts of American society — including the recent killings of unarmed black people by law enforcement — with the nation’s supposedly post-racial identity, and what does it mean to occupy a black body in America today?

When he’s not writing award-winning books, Coates — who was hailed by the New York Observer as “the single best writer on the subject of race in the United States” — is a national correspondent for The Atlantic, where he writes about culture, politics and social issues.

The 2017 Ruhl Lecture is made possible in part by the School of Journalism and Communication’s Robert and Mabel Ruhl Lecture Endowment and the Hearst Foundation Visiting Professionals Endowment Fund. The Coates lecture is also part of the UO’s new African-American Presidential Lecture Series, which is bringing a range of African-American scholars and practitioners to campus during the 2016-17 school year.

Tickets are available at http://sojc.co/2017Ruhl. Direct outreach efforts will be made to ensure that an array of campus groups are represented and that the local community can participate as well.

The event will be simulcast to UO Portland, with a panel discussion and related art exhibit. For more information and to sign up for the Portland event, email jdonahue@uoregon.edu.