We are pleased to share a faculty spotlight about
Paige Williams, a
New Yorker staff writer who is currently the Laventhol/Newsday Visiting Associate Professor at the Columbia Journalism School. This academic year, Professor Williams has taught two courses in the
Master of Science Program: "Reporting and Writing" in the fall semester and a master class on "True Crime" that is being held this spring. Each year, Columbia Journalism School invites distinguished journalists like Professor Williams to teach courses as visiting faculty and offer their expertise to students.
Professor Williams' Columbia Journalism School course "True Crime" examines the current context of the true crime genre’s success by surveying the history of true crime in America—from the Salem witch trials to today—and what that evolution says about the overlapping, ongoing complexities of race, class, gender, and punishment. Visiting speakers in the class may include journalistic masters of the genre or NYPD homicide detectives.
In 2018, Professor Williams published her first book:
The Dinosaur Artist: Obsession, Betrayal, and the Quest for Earth's Ultimate Trophy (Hachette). The book tells a story that stretches from Florida to Mongolia to illuminate the world of obsessive and eccentric fossil collectors.
Nature magazine called
The Dinosaur Artist "an astonishing tangle of financial gain, national identity, scientific fervor and, above all, the obsessional need to possess pieces of the past."
A staff writer at
The New Yorker, Professor Williams often writes longform features, including a recent, mouthwatering
article about the African-American family business that put Nashville hot chicken on the culinary map. She has also covered such topics as the death penalty in Alabama, suburban politics in Detroit, paleoanthropology in South Africa, and the misappropriation of cultural patrimony from the Tlingit peoples of Alaska.
Please explore our
website to learn more about Columbia Journalism School's
faculty members,
course offerings, and
degree programs.