Priya Vulchi, Author of Good Friends, with Ruha Benjamin

The author is joined in conversation by Princeton Professor Ruha Benjamin to discuss her latest book, “Good Friends: Bonds that Change Us and the World.”

What is the meaning of friendship, these miraculous bonds with once-strangers? How do you begin friendships? End them? Keep them vibrant? For answers, Vulchi weaves through Western classical thinkers like Plato, Aristotle, and Cicero, and uncovers the private moments between good friends like James Baldwin, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., Yuri Kochiyama, Toni Morrison, and June Jordan. Friendship, she shows, has ripple effects beyond just any two friends; it awakens solidarity and changes in the world.  Through her inspiring and impassioned prose, Vulchi entirely reimagines our platonic ties, revealing that friendship, in the right hands, is a brilliant act of love and resistance.

Presented in partnership with the Department of African American Studies and the Labyrinth Books.