Rather than firing off a series of hot-takes or merely aestheticizing her personal pain, McMillan Cottom offers what she refers to as “thick description,” a concept that, in the social sciences, refers to the practice of presenting detailed observations of human behavior and using its sociocultural context to extract meanings. In her own words, she’s “country” and, since entering academia, “middle class.” She’s an intellectual leader on Black Twitter but she can still be told by colleagues that, as a research pursuit, “black is over.” While black women make up two percent of higher education faculty in the United States, McMillan Cottom is unapologetically “black-black,” which to her means not only having a dark complexion and working-class Southern roots, but also being seen as “a problem.” The essays incorporate these and many more biographical truths, putting them into a series of conversations between the author and other scholars and public intellectuals, from bell hooks to David Brooks, people she encounters in everyday life and her digital audience.

She’s a sociologist who balances a remarkably active research program and university teaching with guest appearances on Fresh Air and The Daily Show. This is to be expected, as McMillan Cottom generally defies single categories and genres in ways that have simultaneously helped her public image and given ammunition to academic gatekeepers. Yet, as the author Tressie McMillan Cottom asserts, the category of personal essay does not adequately capture her writing style or approach. THICK IS A COLLECTION of essays that deals with very personal issues, including body image, sexual abuse, and the loss of a child.

Tressie cottom thick