New Books in African American Studies

Talitha LeFlouria, "Chained in Silence: Black Women and Convict Labor in the New South" (UNC Press, 2016)

20 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Talitha LeFlouria, a fellow at the Carter G. Woodson Institute at the University of Virginia, discusses her book, Chained in Silence: Black ...

Darnella Davis, "Untangling a Red, White, and Black Heritage: A Personal History of the Allotment Era" (U New Mexico Press, 2018)

19 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Untangling a Red, White, and Black Heritage: A Personal History of the Allotment Era (U New Mexico Press, 2018), Darnella Davis combines the perso...

Davin Phoenix, "The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2020)

19 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the race for the best book of 2020, Davin Phoenix has placed himself in the lead. Phoenix has written The Anger Gap: How Race Shapes Emotion in Pol...

Lennox Honychurch, "In the Forests of Freedom: The Fighting Maroons of Dominica" (UP Mississippi, 2017)

12 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Maroons—enslaved Africans who escaped and formed autonomous communities—dominated Dominica’s hilly interior for centuries. Dominica’s unusual ...

Matthew Hild and Keri Leigh Merritt, "Reconsidering Southern Labor History" (UP of Florida, 2018)

06 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Matthew Hild and Keri Leigh Merritt discuss their new edited volume, Reconsidering Southern Labor History: Race, Class, and Power (University Press of...

Lundy Braun, "Breathing Race into the Machine" (U Minnesota Press, 2014)

04 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

“We cannot get answers to questions that cannot be asked.” Lundy Braun’s influential book, Breathing Race into the Machine: The Surprising Caree...

Asher Price, "Earl Campbell: Yards After Contact" (U Texas Press, 2019)

04 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Earl Campbell was a force in American football, winning a state championship in high school, rushing his way to a Heisman trophy for the University of...

John L. Brooke, "'There Is a North': Fugitive Slaves, Political Crisis, and Cultural Transformation in the Coming of the Civil War" (U Mass Press, 2019)

03 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

How does political change take hold? In the 1850s, politicians and abolitionists despaired, complaining that the “North, the poor timid, mercenary, ...

Alberto Cairo, "How Charts Lie: Getting Smarter about Visual Information" (Norton, 2019)

03 Dec 2019

Contributed by Lukas

We’ve all heard that a picture is worth a thousand words, but what if we don’t understand what we’re looking at? Social media has made charts, i...

Peter Kerasotis, "Alou: My Baseball Journey" (U Nebraska Press, 2018)

26 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

All aficionados of baseball are familiar with the pathbreaking role of Jackie Robinson in reintegrating the game back in 1947. What many fans are less...

Rebecca Scofield, "Outriders: Rodeo at the Fringes of the American West" (U Washington, 2019)

25 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rodeo is one of the indelible images of culture in the American West. The John Wayne-like cowboy tenaciously hanging on to the bucking bronc is a clas...

Jonathan Rothwell, "A Republic of Equals: A Manifesto for a Just Society" (Princeton UP, 2019)

20 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Inequality in the U.S. has increased dramatically over the past decades -- on that there is agreement. There is less agreement on the causes of that i...

Ruha Benjamin, "Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code" (Polity, 2019)

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

From everyday apps to complex algorithms, Ruha Benjamin cuts through tech-industry hype to understand how emerging technologies can reinforce White su...

Daniel Schwartz, "Ghetto: The History of a Word" (Harvard UP, 2019)

19 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The word “ghetto” has taken on different meanings since its coinage in the 16th century. The uses of this term have varied considerably, from its ...

David Wheat, "Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570-1640" (UNC Press, 2016)

18 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

David Wheat’s fantastic book Atlantic Africa and the Spanish Caribbean, 1570-1640 (University of North Carolina Press, 2016) argues that the extens...

Wendy Gonaver, "The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840–1880" (UNC Press, 2019)

15 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Wendy Gonaver discusses her book, The Peculiar Institution and the Making of Modern Psychiatry, 1840-1880 (University of North Carolina Press, 201...

Dave Tell, "Remembering Emmett Till" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

14 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode of the New Books Network, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Rhetoric and Communication at the State University of New York at ...

William P. Hustwit, "Integration Now: Alexander v. Holmes and the End of Jim Crow Education" (UNC Press, 2019)

12 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of Talking Legal History, Siobhan talks with William P. Hustwit about his book Integration Now: Alexander v. Holmes and the End of J...

Derrick E. White, "Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football" (UNC, 2019)

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Dr. Derrick E. White's new book Blood, Sweat, and Tears: Jake Gaither, Florida A&M, and the History of Black College Football (University of North Car...

AfroAm Studies Roundtable: Ashley Farmer on "Archiving While Black"

08 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For histories to be written, historians must engage archival material. What happens, though, when particular groups of historians do not feel like the...

Nina Sun Eidsheim, "The Race of Sound: Listening, Timbre and Vocality in African American Music" (Duke UP, 2019)

04 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In 2018, Nicolle R. Holliday and Daniel Villarreal published the results of a study they conducted asking people to rank how “black” President Oba...

Kathryn Conrad on University Press Publishing

03 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

As you may know, university presses publish a lot of good books. In fact, they publish thousands of them every year. They are different from most trad...

Jay Driskell, "Schooling Jim Crow: The Fight for Atlanta's Booker T. Washington High School" (UVA Press, 2014)

01 Nov 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Jay Driskell of Hood College, author of Schooling Jim Crow: The Fight for Atlanta's Booker T. Washington High School and the Roots of Black ...

W. Caleb McDaniel, "Sweet Taste of Liberty: A True Story of Slavery and Restitution in America" (Oxford UP, 2019)

30 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Born into slavery, Henrietta Wood was taken to Cincinnati and legally freed in 1848. In 1853, a Kentucky deputy sheriff named Zebulon Ward colluded wi...

Nicholas Buccola, "The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America" (Princeton UP, 2019)

30 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Nicholas Buccola’s new book, The Fire Is Upon Us: James Baldwin, William F. Buckley Jr., and the Debate over Race in America (Princeton Universit...

Zoltan Hajnal, "Dangerously Divided: How Race and Class Shape Winning and Losing in American Politics" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

30 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book Dangerously Divided: How Race and Class Shape Winning and Losing in American Politics (Cambridge University Press, 2019), Zoltan Hajna...

Aisha Shillingford and Terry Marshall, "Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Re-Imaging Gender in Wakanda" (WDL, 2019)

28 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Wakanda Dream Lab’s anthology, Black Freedom Beyond Borders: Re-Imaging Gender in Wakanda, features the work of writers, artists, and activists, as ...

Marc Dollinger, "Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s" (Brandeis UP, 2018)

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Power, Jewish Politics: Reinventing the Alliance in the 1960s (Brandeis University Press, 2018), Professor Marc Dollinger who holds the Rich...

Jared Hardesty, "Black Lives, Native Lands, White Worlds: A History of Slavery in New England" (Bright Leaf, 2019)

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Shortly after the first Europeans arrived in seventeenth-century New England, they began to import Africans and capture the area’s indigenous people...

Greta de Jong, "You Can’t Eat Freedom: Southerners and Social Justice after the Civil Rights Movement" (UNC Press, 2016)

25 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Professor Greta de Jong of the University of Nevada, Reno, discusses her book, You Can’t Eat Freedom: Southerners and Social Justice after the Civil...

J. Neuhaus, "Geeky Pedagogy: A Guide for Intellectuals, Introverts, and Nerds Who Want to Be Effective Teachers" (West Virginia UP, 2019)

24 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The things that make people academics -- as deep fascination with some arcane subject, often bordering on obsession, and a comfort with the solitude t...

Brenna Wynn Greer, "Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined American Citizenship" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2019)

23 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Brenna Wynn Greer’s new study Represented: The Black Imagemakers Who Reimagined American Citizenship (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2019), p...

Karen Cox, "Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, and the Gothic South" (UNC Press, 2017)

18 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Karen Cox, Professor of History at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, discusses her new book, Goat Castle: A True Story of Murder, Race, a...

Steven White, "World War II and American Racial Politics: Public Opinion, the Presidency, and Civil Rights Advocacy" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

18 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

World War II played an important role in the trajectory of race and American political development, but the War's effects were much more complex than ...

David Farber, "Crack: Rock Cocaine, Street Capitalism, and the Decade of Greed" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

16 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

A shattering account of the crack cocaine years from award-winning American historian David Farber, Crack: Rock Cocaine, Street Capitalism, and the De...

Richard Bell, "Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped Into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home" (Simon and Schuster, 2019)

16 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Richard Bell is the author of Stolen: Five Free Boys Kidnapped Into Slavery and Their Astonishing Odyssey Home, published by Simon & Schuster in 2019....

T. L. Bunyasi and C. W. Smith, "Stay Woke: A People’s Guide to Making All Black Lives Matter" (NYU Press, 2019)

14 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Tehama Lopez Bunyasi and Candis Watts Smith have written an accessible and important book about the #BlackLivesMatter social movement and broader cons...

Rafia Zafar, "Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

11 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Dr. Carrie Tippen talks with Rafia Zafar about her 2019 book Recipes for Respect: African American Meals and Meaning, from the...

Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres, "Black British Migrants in Cuba" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Jorge L. Giovannetti-Torres' new book Black British Migrants in Cuba: Race, Labor, and Empire in the Twentieth-Century Caribbean, 1898–1948 (Cambrid...

Gregory P. Downs, "After Appomattox: Military Occupation and the Ends of War" (Harvard UP, 2015)

09 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On April 8, 1865, after four years of civil war, General Robert E. Lee wrote to General Ulysses S. Grant asking for peace. Peace was beyond his author...

Paul Musselwhite, "Urban Dreams, Rural Commonwealth: The Rise of Plantation Society in the Chesapeake" (U Chicago Press, 2019)

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Early American colonialism is often distinguished by an urban and rural divide. Urban development was a sign of imperial progress. British writers fre...

Cécile Vidal, "Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society" (UNC Press, 2019)

08 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Combining Atlantic and imperial perspectives,Caribbean New Orleans: Empire, Race, and the Making of a Slave Society (University of North Carolina Pres...

Remi Joseph-Salisbury, "Black Mixed-Race Men: Transatlanticity, Hybridity and 'Post-Racial' Resilience" (Emerald, 2018)

07 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What are the experiences of mixed-race men? In Black Mixed-Race Men: Transatlanticity, Hybridity and 'Post-Racial' Resilience (Emerald Publishing, 201...

A Conversation with Acquisitions Editor Dawn Durante about How Manuscripts Become Books

04 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

For a book to exist, there must be a lot more than a writer. Of course, the writer is the essential component. But what about all the other hard-worki...

Ebony Elizabeth Thomas, "The Dark Fantastic: Race and the Imagination from Harry Potter to the Hunger Games" (NYU Press, 2019)

03 Oct 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Stories provide portals into other worlds, both real and imagined. The promise of escape draws people from all backgrounds to speculative fiction, but...

Elizabeth Herbin-Triant, "Race, Class, and Campaigns to Legislate Jim Crow Neighborhoods" (Columbia UP, 2019)

24 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth Herbin-Triant is the author of Threatening Property: Race, Class, and Campaigns to Legislate Jim Crow Neighborhoods, published by Columbia U...

Claudia Leal, "Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia" (U Arizona Press, 2018)

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Claudia Leal’s Landscapes of Freedom: Building a Postemancipation Society in the Rainforests of Western Colombia (University of Arizona Press, 2018)...

Ashanté M. Reese, "Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C." (UNC Press, 2019)

23 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Black Food Geographies: Race, Self-Reliance, and Food Access in Washington, D.C. (University of North Carolina Press, 2019), by Ashanté M. Reese, exa...

Thomas Aiello, "The Grapevine of the Black South" (U Georgia Press, 2018)

19 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In the summer of 1928, William Alexander Scott began a small four-page weekly with the help of his brother Cornelius. By 1932 the Atlanta World had be...

Scott Heerman, "The Alchemy of Slavery: Human Bondage and Emancipation in the Illinois Country" (U Pennsylvania, 2018)

19 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Scott Heerman is the author of The Alchemy of Slavery: Human Bondage and Emancipation in the Illinois Country, published by the University of Pennsylv...

Jennifer Jensen Wallach, "What We Need Ourselves: How Food has Shaped African American Life" (Rowman and Littlefield, 2019)

18 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Dr. Carrie Tippen talks with Jennifer Jensen Wallach about the her book Getting What We Need Ourselves: How Food has Shaped Af...

Michael F. Conlin, "The Constitutional Origins of the American Civil War" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In an incisive analysis of over two dozen clauses as well as several 'unwritten' rules and practices, The Constitutional Origins of the American Civil...

Mark Burford, "Mahalia Jackson and the Black Gospel Field" (Oxford UP, 2019)

17 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Mahalia Jackson, the great mid-twentieth century gospel singer, thought of herself as an embodiment of the history of African Americans in the United ...

Chelene Knight, "Dear Current Occupant" (Book*hug, 2018)

12 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Today, I’m talking with Chelene Knight. She’s written a new memoir called Dear Current Occupant (Book*hug, 2018). And as her title suggests, it’...

William Sturkey, "Hattiesburg: An American City in Black and White" (Harvard UP, 2019)

10 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If you really want to understand Jim Crow—what it was and how African Americans rose up to defeat it—you should start by visiting Mobile Street in...

Harriet Washington, "A Terrible Thing to Waste: Environmental Racism and Its Assault on the American Mind" (Little, Brown Spark, 2019)

09 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Environmental racism is visible not only as cancer clusters or the location of grocery stores. It is responsible for the reported gap in IQ scores bet...

Hendrik Hartog, "The Trouble with Minna: A Case of Slavery and Emancipation in the Antebellum North" (UNC Press, 2018)

05 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the American Society for Legal History’s podcast Talking Legal History Siobhan talks with Hendrik Hartog about his book The Troub...

Kevin M. Levin, "Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth" (UNC Press, 2019)

04 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kevin M. Levin is the author of Searching for Black Confederates: The Civil War’s Most Persistent Myth, published by the University of North Carolin...

David Doddington, "Contesting Slave Masculinity in the American South" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

02 Sep 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Contesting Slave Masculinity in the American South (Cambridge University Press, 2018)  demonstrates the significance of internal divisions, compariso...

Niambi Michele Carter, "American While Black: African Americans, Immigration, and the Limits of Citizenship" (Oxford UP, 2019)

28 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Just in time for the APSA annual meeting, Niambi Michele Carter has written an incredibly timely book on a central issue to American politics, America...

Jesse Hoffnung-Garskof, "Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean" (Princeton UP, 2019)

27 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In his new book, Racial Migrations: New York City and the Revolutionary Politics of the Spanish Caribbean (Princeton University Press, 2019), historia...

Kevin Dawson, "Undercurrents of Power: Aquatic Culture in the African Diaspora" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2018)

26 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Long before the rise of New World slavery, West Africans were adept swimmers, divers, canoe makers, and canoeists. They lived along riverbanks, near l...

Patricia A. Banks, "Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums: Black Renaissance" (Routledge, 2019)

23 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

What is the future, and what is the past, of the African American Museum? In Diversity and Philanthropy at African American Museums: Black Renaissance...

Simon Balto, "Occupied Territory: Policing Black Chicago From Red Summer to Black Power" (UNC Press, 2019)

22 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Recent scholarship locates the origins of mass incarceration in national anticrime policy from 1960 to 1990, and has drastically reframed the “punit...

Paul Finkelman, "Supreme Injustice: Slavery in the Nation’s Highest Court" (Harvard UP, 2018)

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this episode of the American Society for Legal History’s podcast Talking Legal History Siobhan talks with Paul Finkelman, President of Gratz Coll...

Joshua D. Farrington, "Black Republicans and the Transformation of the GOP" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2016)

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Reflecting on his fifty-year effort to steer the Grand Old Party toward black voters, Memphis power broker George W. Lee declared, "Somebody had to st...

Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi, "For Black Trans Girls Who Gotta Cuss A Mother F*cker Out When Snatching An Edge Ain’t Enough"

19 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Inspired by Ntozake Shange’s for colored girls who considered suicide/when the rainbow is enuf Lady Dane Figueroa Edidi has written her own beautifu...

Mary-Elizabeth Murphy, "Jim Crow Capital: Women and Black Freedom Struggles in Washington, DC, 1920-1945" (UNC Press, 2018)

16 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Though women’s roles in the black freedom struggle remain under-acknowledged, scholars continue to make their importance clear. In her new book, Jim...

Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan, "Vagrants and Vagabonds: Poverty and Mobility in the Early American Republic" (NYU Press, 2019)

12 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kristin O’Brassill-Kulfan is the author of Vagrants and Vagabonds: Poverty and Mobility in the Early American Republic, published by New York Univer...

Claudrena N. Harold, "Charlottesville 2017: The Legacy of Race and Inequity" (U Virginia Press, 2018)

10 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

When hate groups descended on Charlottesville, Virginia, triggering an eruption of racist violence, the tragic conflict reverberated throughout the wo...

Lenora Warren, "Fire on the Water: Sailors, Slaves, and Insurrection in Early American Literature, 1789-1886" (Rutgers UP, 2019)

08 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Lenora Warren about her book, Fire on the Water: Sailors, Slaves, and Insurrection in Early American Literature, 1789-1886, published by Rutgers Unive...

Grégory Pierrot, "The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

07 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

With the Ta-Nehisi Coates–authored Black Panther comic book series (2016),  recent films Django Unchained (2012), The Birth of a Nation (2016), Nat...

Jaime Alves, "Anti-Black City: Police Terror and Black Urban Life in Brazil (U Minnesota Press, 2018)

02 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The 2018 election of far-right president Jair Bolsonaro in Brazil has brought the issues of police violence, racial discrimination, and misogyny to th...

Ryan A. Quintana, "Making a Slave State: Political Development in Early South Carolina" (UNC Press, 2018)

01 Aug 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Ryan A. Quintana is the author of Making a Slave State: Political Development in Early South Carolina, published by the University of North Carolina P...

Ashley Robertson, "Mary McLeod Bethune in Florida: Bringing Social Justice to the Sunshine State" (The History Press, 2015)

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Mary McLeod Bethune was often called the "First Lady of Negro America," but she made significant contributions to the political climate of Florida as ...

Christy Clark-Pujara, "Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island" (NYU Press, 2016)

25 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Dark Work: The Business of Slavery in Rhode Island(NYU Press, 2016; paperback, 2018), Christy Clark-Pujara, Associate Professor of History in the D...

Andrew Torget, "Seeds of Empire: Cotton, Slavery, and the Transformation of the Texas Borderlands, 1800-1850" (UNC Press, 2015)

24 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The secession of Texas from Mexico was a dry run for the slaveholder’s republic of the Confederate States of America, argues Andrew Torget in Seeds ...

Anne Twitty, "Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857" (Cambridge UP, 2016)

23 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Anne Twitty is the author of Before Dred Scott: Slavery and Legal Culture in the American Confluence, 1787-1857, published by Cambridge University Pre...

Thomas A. Foster, "Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

19 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Rethinking Rufus: Sexual Violations of Enslaved Men (University of Georgia Press, 2019) is the first book-length study of sexual violence against ensl...

Kimberly Welch, "Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South" (UNC Press, 2018)

18 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Kimberly Welch is the author of Black Litigants in the Antebellum American South (University of North Carolina Press, 2018). Welch is Assistant Profes...

Ann Powers, "Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music" (Dey St. Books, 2017)

17 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Good Booty: Love and Sex, Black and White, Body and Soul in American Music (Dey St. Books, HarperCollins, 2017), Ann Powers explores the rich and, ...

jayy dodd, "The Black Condition Ft. Narcissus" (Nightboat Books, 2019)

16 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

If the prompt is “respond to a myth of Narcissus using thoughtful, meditative poems,” then jayy dodd gave us a beautiful answer. In The Black Cond...

Catherine Keyser, "Artificial Color: Modern Food and Racial Fictions" (Oxford UP, 2019)

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Catherine Keyser about early twentieth century fiction and the role that modern food plays in literat...

Shirletta J. Kinchen, "Black Power in the Bluff City: African American Youth and Student Activism in Memphis, 1965–1975" (U Tennessee Press, 2016)

15 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

During the civil rights era, Memphis gained a reputation for having one of the South’s strongest NAACP branches. But that organization, led by the c...

David Varel, "The Lost Black Scholar: Resurrecting Allison Davis in American Social Thought" (U Chicago Press, 2018)

12 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Allison Davis (1902-1983) was a pioneering anthropologist who did ground-breaking fieldwork in the Jim Crow south,  challenged the racial bias of IQ ...

Seán Moore, "Slavery and the Making of Early American Libraries" (Oxford UP, 2019)

11 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Early American libraries stood at the nexus of two transatlantic branches of commerce—the book trade and the slave trade. Slavery and the Making of ...

Tanisha C. Ford, "Dressed in Dreams: A Black Girl's Love Letter to the Power of Fashion" (St. Martins Press, 2019)

10 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In this highly engaging book, fashionista and pop culture expert Tanisha C. Ford investigates Afros and dashikis, go-go boots and hotpants of the sixt...

Genevieve Carpio, "Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race" (U California Press, 2019)

08 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In her new book, Collisions at the Crossroads: How Place and Mobility Make Race (University of California Press, 2019), Professor Genevieve Carpio con...

Tiffany Gill, "To Turn the Whole World Over: Black Women and Internationalism" (U Illinois Press, 2019)

05 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Annette Joseph-Gabriel talks with Tiffany Gill about the history of African American travel in the late twentieth century and its significance to Blac...

Yuko Miki, "Frontiers of Citizenship: A Black and Indigenous History of Postcolonial Brazil" (Cambridge UP, 2018)

05 Jul 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Yuko Miki’s book, Frontiers of Citizenship: A Black and Indigenous History of Postcolonial Brazil(Cambridge University Press, 2018), was the recent ...

Nancy Mirabal, "Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957" (NYU Press, 2017)

27 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Suspect Freedoms: The Racial and Sexual Politics of Cubanidad in New York, 1823-1957 (NYU Press, 2017), Nancy Mirabal details New York Cuban diaspo...

Chris S. Duvall, "The African Roots of Marijuana" (Duke UP, 2019)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There's so much discussion in the contemporary United States about marijuana. Debates focus on legalization and medicalization. Usually, Reefer Madnes...

Stephen R. Duncan, "The Rebel Café: Sex, Race, and Politics in Cold War America’s Nightclub Underground" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2018)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

The art and antics of rebellious figures in 1950s American nightlife―from the Beat Generation to eccentric jazz musicians and comedians―have long ...

Dorinne Kondo, "Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity" (Duke UP, 2018)

24 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

In Worldmaking: Race, Performance, and the Work of Creativity (Duke University Press 2018), Dorinne Kondo brings together critical race studies, affec...

Camisha Russell, "The Assisted Reproduction of Race" (Indiana UP, 2018)

20 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) such as in vitro fertilization and surrogacy have been critically examined within philosophy, particularly b...

Shennette Garrett-Scott, "Banking on Freedom: Black Women in U.S. Finance Before the New Deal" (Columbia UP, 2019)

19 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Think running an insurance company or a bank is hard?  Try doing it as an African-American woman in the Jim Crow South.  Shennette Garrett-Scott's n...

Marisol LeBrón, "Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico" (U California Press, 2019)

18 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Marisol LeBrón’s new book, Policing Life and Death: Race, Violence, and Resistance in Puerto Rico (University of California Press, 2019), examines ...

E. Douglas Bomberger, "Making Music American: 1917 and the Transformation of Culture" (Oxford UP, 2018)

13 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

There has been a recent trend in books that explore one year in detail: 1914, 1927, and 1968 have all received this treatment. E. Douglas Bomberger’...

Bryan McCann, "The Mark of Criminality: Rhetoric, Race, and Gangsta Rap in the War-on-Crime Era" (U Alabama Press, 2017)

12 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

On this episode, Dr. Lee Pierce (she/they)--Asst. Prof. of Communication at SUNY Geneseo--interviews Bryan McCann (he/his)--Associate Professor of Com...

Christina Proenza-Coles, "American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World" (NewSouth Books, 2019)

11 Jun 2019

Contributed by Lukas

Christina Proenza-Coles' new book American Founders: How People of African Descent Established Freedom in the New World (NewSouth Books, 2019) reveals...