New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
Susan Cahan, “Mounting Frustration: The Art Museum in the Age of Black Power” (Duke UP, 2016)
21 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The struggle for representation within the art museum is the focus of a timely and important new book by Susan Cahan, Associate Dean for the Arts at Y...
April R. Haynes, “Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vice in Nineteenth-Century America” (University of Chicago Press, 2015)
16 Jul 2016
Contributed by Lukas
April R. Haynes is an assistant professor of history at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. In Riotous Flesh: Women, Physiology, and the Solitary Vic...
Anthea Kraut, “Choreographing Copyright: Race, Gender, and Intellectual Property Rights in American Dance” (Oxford UP, 2015)
23 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is it possible to lay claim to ownership of a dance? Is choreography intellectual property? How have shifting conceptions of race and gender shaped th...
Bert Ashe, “Twisted: My Dreadlock Chronicles” (Agate Bolden, 2015)
23 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
What’s missing from contemporary discussions of aesthetics and representation within the natural hair movement? Bert Ashe generously offers a respon...
Ed Berlin, “King of Ragtime: Scott Joplin and His Era” (Oxford UP, 2016)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Few composers dominate a genre of music as completely as did Scott Joplin. From the publication of his iconic Maple Leaf Rag in 1899 onward his ragtim...
Gabriel Mendes, “Under the Strain of Color: Harlem’s Lafargue Clinic and the Promise of an Antiracist Psychiatry” (Cornell University Press, 2015)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In his 1948 essay, “Harlem is Nowhere,” Ralph Ellison decried the psychological disparity between formal equality and discrimination faced by Blac...
Edlie Wong, “Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chinese Exclusion, and the Fictions of Citizenship” (NYU Press, 2015)
15 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
The dialectical configuration of black inclusion/Chinese exclusion is at the center of Edlie Wong‘s book Racial Reconstruction: Black Inclusion, Chi...
Laurent Dubois, “The Banjo: America’s African Instrument” (Harvard UP, 2016)
02 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Most scholars of popular music use songs, artists, and clubs as the key texts and sites in their exploration of the social, cultural, political, and e...
Alfred Frankowski, “The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization: Towards a Political Sense of Mourning” (Lexington Press, 2015)
02 Jun 2016
Contributed by Lukas
How are cultural practices that suggest social inclusion at the root of marginalizing social suffering? In The Post-Racial Limits of Memorialization: ...
Jason Bivins, “Spirits Rejoice! Jazz and American Religion” (Oxford UP, 2015)
31 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jazz is often dubbed the greatest American original art form. This claim might be difficult to contend. But a close exploration of the folks who creat...
Jonathon S. Kahn and Vincent W. Lloyd, editors, “Race And Secularism in America” (Columbia UP, 2016)
28 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Jonathon S. Kahn is an associate professor of religion at Vassar College. He is co-editor with Vincent W. Lloyd of a collection of essays entitled Rac...
Betina Cutaia Wilkinson, “Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century” (U of Virginia Press, 2015)
23 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Betina Cutaia Wilkinson is the author of Partners or Rivals? Power and Latino, Black, and White Relations in the Twenty-First Century (University of V...
Lester K. Spence, “Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics” (Punctum Books, 2016)
16 May 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Lester K. Spence is the author of Knocking the Hustle: Against the Neoliberal Turn in Black Politics (Punctum Books, 2016). Spence is associate profes...
Randy Roberts and Johnny Smith, “Blood Brothers: The Fatal Friendship Between Muhammad Ali and Malcolm X” (Basic Books, 2016)
30 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is there a figure in sports more admired and beloved than Muhammad Ali? Widely revered not only as one of boxing’s greatest champions but also as on...
Keenanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “From #BlackLivesMatter to Black Liberation” (Haymarket Books, 2016)
20 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Few social justice struggles have captivated recent political history like the broad Black Lives Matter movement. From the streets of Ferguson and Bal...
Kimberly Fain, “Black Hollywood: From Butlers to Superheroes, the Changing Role of African American Men in the Movies” (Praeger, 2015)
03 Apr 2016
Contributed by Lukas
While black men have been portrayed in film for over a hundred years, they have often been stereotyped or portrayed very badly. In her book Black Holl...
Steve Phillips, “Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority” (The New Press, 2016)
21 Mar 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Steve Phillips is the author of Brown is the New White: How the Demographic Revolution Has Created a New American Majority (The New Press, 2016). Phil...
James Davis, “Eric Walrond: A Life in the Harlem Renaissance and the Transatlantic Caribbean” (Columbia University Press, 2015)
24 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
This terrific book follows the itinerary of Eric Walrond’s peripatetic life. Born in Guyana in 1898, Walrond lived in Barbados, Panama, New York, Pa...
Jessica Parr, “Inventing George Whitefield: Race, Revivalism, and the Making of a Religious Icon” (UP of Mississippi, 2015)
22 Feb 2016
Contributed by Lukas
George Whitefield was a complex man driven by a simple idea, the new birth that brought salvation. Because of such passion, Whitefield received both e...
Aisha Durham, “Home With Hip Hop Feminism” (Peter Lang, 2014)
14 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
Is hip hop defined by its artists or by its audience? In Home With Hip Hop Feminism, Aisha Durham returns hip hop scholarship to its roots by engaging...
Eric Foner, “Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden History of the Underground Railroad” (Norton, 2015)
05 Jan 2016
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk with Eric Foner, DeWitt Clinton Professor of History at Columbia University about his book, Gateway to Freedom: The Hidden Hist...
Neil Roberts, “Freedom as Marronage” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
18 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What does it mean to be free? How can paying attention to the relationship between freedom and slavery help construct a concept and practice of freedo...
Jodi Eichler-Levine, “Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature” (NYU Press, 2013)
14 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Suffer the Little Children: Uses of the Past in Jewish and African American Children’s Literature (New York University Press, 2013), Jodi Eichler...
Phil Ford, “Dig: Sound and Music in Hip Culture” (Oxford UP, 2013)
10 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
What is hip? Can a piece of music be hip? Or is hipness primarily a way of engaging with music which recognizes the hip potential of the music? Or pri...
Kimberly Marlowe Hartnett, “Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights” (UNC Press, 2015)
09 Dec 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Carolina Israelite: How Harry Golden Made Us Care about Jews, the South, and Civil Rights (The University of North Carolina Press, 2015), Kimberly ...
Kimberly Fain, “Colson Whitehead: The Postracial Voice of Contemporary Literature” (Rowman and Littlefield, 2015)
30 Nov 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Colson Whitehead’s fiction has drawn varied criticism. On the one hand, there’s the scholarship of the African diaspora, a tradition that takes th...
Daniel Geary, “Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and Its Legacy” (U of Pennsylvania Press, 2015)
27 Oct 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Daniel Geary is the Mark Pigott Associate Professor in U.S. History at Trinity College Dublin. His book Beyond Civil Rights: The Moynihan Report and I...
Debra Majeed, “Polygyny: What it Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands” (UP of Florida, 2015)
30 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In her wonderful new book Polygyny: What it Means When African American Muslim Women Share Their Husbands (University Press of Florida, 2015), Debra M...
Gregory O’Malley, “Final Passages: The Intercolonial Slave Trade of British America, 1619-1807” (UNC Press for the Omohundro Institute, 2014)
26 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Gregory E. O’Malley examines a crucial, but almost universally overlooked, aspect of the African slave trade in his new book Final Passages: The Int...
Sonja D. Williams “Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom” (U of Illinois Press, 2015)
23 Sep 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Sonja D. Williams‘ book Word Warrior: Richard Durham, Radio, and Freedom (University of Illinois Press, 2015) connects its subject to some of the mo...
Leah Wright Rigueur, “The Loneliness of the Black Republican: Pragmatic Politics and the Pursuit of Power” (Princeton UP, 2015)
16 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Leah Wright Rigueur is an assistant professor of public policy at the Harvard Kennedy School of Government. Her book The Loneliness of the Black Repub...
Preston Lauterbach, “Beale Street Dynasty: Sex, Song, and the Struggle for the Soul of Memphis” (Norton, 2015)
04 Aug 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Following the Civil War, Memphis emerged a center of black progress, optimism, and cultural ferment, after a period of turmoil. Preston Lauterbach joi...
Laura F. Edwards, “A Legal History of the Civil War and Reconstruction: A Nation of Rights” (Cambridge UP, 2015)
26 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk with Laura F. Edwards, Peabody Family Professor of History at Duke University about her book, A Legal History of the Civil War ...
Mia E. Bay, et al., “Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women” (UNC Press, 2015)
26 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mia Bay is a professor of history at Rutgers University, and Director of the Center for Race and Ethnicity. She is co-editor of Toward an Intellectual...
David George Surdham, “The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989” (U of Illinois Press, 2015)
24 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
David George Surdham is the author of The Big Leagues Go to Washington: Congress and Sports Antitrust, 1951-1989 (University of Illinois Press, 2015)....
Carlos Kevin Blanton, “George I. Sanchez: The Long Fight for Mexican American Integration” (Yale UP, 2015)
12 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Although the designation now applies to American citizens of Mexican ethnicity writ large, the term Mexican American (hyphenated or not) also refers t...
Julian E. Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (Penguin, 2015)
06 Jul 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Julian E. Zelizer is the author of The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society (Penguin Press, 2015). Ze...
Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox, “Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics” (Oxford UP, 2015)
28 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Jennifer L. Lawless and Richard L. Fox are the authors of Running from Office: Why Young Americans Are Turned off to Politics (Oxford UP,2015). Lawles...
Ted A. Smith, “Weird John Brown: Divine Violence and the Limits of Ethics” (Stanford UP, 2014)
23 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
People living in the modern west generally have no problem criticizing religiously-justified violence. It’s therefore always interesting when I disc...
Philip A. Wallach, “To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis” (Brookings, 2015)
22 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Philip A. Wallach is the author of To The Edge: Legality, Legitimacy, and the Responses to the 2008 Financial Crisis (Brookings Institution Press, 201...
Akinyele Omowale Umoja, “We Will Shoot Back: Armed Resistance in the Mississippi Freedom Movement” (NYU Press, 2013)
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The historiography of the southern Civil Rights Movement has long focused on the tactic of non-violence. With only a few notable exceptions, most scho...
Andrew Hartman, “The War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars” (U of Chicago Press, 2015)
20 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Andrew Hartman is associate professor of history at Illinois State University. His book A War for the Soul of America: A History of the Culture Wars (...
Rory Carroll, “Comandante: Hugo Chavez’s Venezuela” (Penguin Books, 2013)
09 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Historically, Venezuela is known as one of the most stable Latin American nations of the twentieth century. The subsequent discovery of oil transform...
Charis Thompson, “Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research” (MIT Press, 2013)
08 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Charis Thompson‘s Good Science: The Ethical Choreography of Stem Cell Research (MIT Press, 2013) is an important book. Good Science explores the “...
Kevin M. Schultz, “Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties” (W. W. Norton, 2015)
02 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In Buckley and Mailer: The Difficult Friendship that Shaped the Sixties (W.W. Norton, 2015), Kevin M. Schultz has given us a lively and colorful narra...
Michael Gould-Wartofsky, “The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement” (Oxford UP, 2015)
01 Jun 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Michael Gould-Wartofsky is the author of The Occupiers: The Making of the 99 Percent Movement (Oxford University Press, 2015). He is a PhD candidate i...
Miriam Pawel, “The Crusades of Cesar Chavez” (Bloomsbury Press, 2014)
29 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Cesar Chavez founded a labor union. Launched a movement. And inspired a generation. Two Decades after his death, Chavez remains the most significant L...
Michelle Ann Stephens, “Skin Acts: Race, Psychoanalysis and the Black Male Performer” (Duke UP, 2014)
28 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Why would Bert Williams, famous African-American vaudeville performer of the early twentieth century, feel it necessary to apply burnt cork blackface...
Beatrix Hoffman, “Health Care for Some: Rights and Rationing in the United States since 1930” (U of Chicago, 2012)
28 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Disputes over the definitions or legality of ‘rights’ and ‘rationing’ in their various guises have animated much of the debate around the Unit...
Julian E. Zelizer, “The Fierce Urgency of Now: Lyndon Johnson, Congress, and the Battle for the Great Society” (Penguin Press, 2015)
22 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In recent decades, as Democrats and Republicans have grown more and more polarized ideologically, and gridlock has becoming increasingly standard in C...
Lawrence Jacobs, “Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation” (U Chicago Press, 2015)
18 May 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Lawrence Jacobs is the author (with James Druckman) of Who Governs? Presidents, Public Opinion, and Manipulation (University of Chicago Press, 2015). ...
Mariana Candido, “An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World” (Cambridge UP, 2013)
17 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Mariana Candido‘s book An African Slaving Port and the Atlantic World. Benguela and its Hinterland (Cambridge University Press, 2013) is a powerful ...
Kirt von Daacke, “Freedom Has a Face: Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia” (UVA Press, 2012)
16 Apr 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In this podcast I talk to Kirt von Daacke about his 2012 work, Freedom Has a Face:Race, Identity, and Community in Jefferson’s Virginia (University ...
Paula T. Connolly, “Slavery in American Children’s Literature, 1790-2010” (U of Iowa Press, 2013)
26 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
The “peculiar institution” upon which the US nation was founded is still rich for examination.Perhaps this is why it is a subject to which 21st ce...
Carolyn Finney, “Black Faces, White Spaces” (UNC Press, 2014)
17 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Geographer Carolyn Finney wrote Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors (University of Nort...
Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos, “Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America” (Oxford UP 2014)
15 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
Doug McAdam and Karina Kloos are the authors of Deeply Divided: Racial Politics and Social Movements in Postwar America (Oxford University Press, 2014...
Kaeten Mistry, “The United States, Italy, and the Origins of Cold War: Waging Political Warfare” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
11 Mar 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In the annals of cold war history Italy is rarely seen as a crucial locale. In his stimulating new book, The United States, Italy, and the Origins o...
David Krugler, “1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
13 Feb 2015
Contributed by Lukas
In 1919, The Year of Racial Violence: How African Americans Fought Back (Cambridge University Press, 2014), David Krugler chronicles the origins and d...
Randy J. Sparks, “Where the Negroes Are Masters” (Harvard UP, 2014)
01 Jan 2015
Contributed by Lukas
A kind of biography of the town of Annamaboe, a major slave trading port on Africa’s Gold Coast, Randy J. Sparks‘s book Where the Negroes Are Mast...
Sarah Mayorga-Gallo, “Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood” (UNC Press 2014)
29 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sarah Mayorga-Gallo is the author of Behind the White Picket Fence: Power and Privilege in a Multiethnic Neighborhood (UNC Press 2014). She is assista...
Jeff Smith, “Ferguson in Black and White” (Kindle Single, 2014)
22 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Jeff Smith is the author of Ferguson in Black and White (Kindle Single, 2014). Smith is assistant professor of political science at The New School’s...
Dick Lehr, “The Birth of a Nation” (PublicAffairs, 2014)
19 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Many books on film discuss the artistic aspects of movies, often as they relate to social and political events that affected the filmmakers. In his bo...
Jason Sokol, “All Eyes Are Upon Us: Race and Politics from Boston to Brooklyn” (Basic Books, 2014)
17 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When it came to race relations, the post-World War Two North was different — better — than the South. Or so white people in the northeast told the...
Cathy L. Schneider, “Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
08 Dec 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Cathy L. Schneider is the author of Police Power and Race Riots: Urban Unrest in Paris and New York (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014). She is a...
Brian Purnell, “Fighting Jim Crow in the County of Kings” (UP of Kentucky, 2014)
25 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Scholars interested in the history of the civil rights movement in the North will definitely be interested in Brian Purnell‘s new book, Fighting Jim...
Candis Watts Smith, “Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity” (NYU Press, 2014)
18 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Candis Watts Smith is the author of Black Mosaic: The Politics of Black Pan-Ethnic Diversity (NYU Press, 2014). Watts Smith is assistant professor of ...
Edward E. Andrews, “Native Apostles: Black and Indian Missionaries in the British Atlantic World” (Harvard UP, 2013)
07 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Often when we think of missions to Native Americans or people of African descent, we think of white missionaries. In his book Native Apostles: Black a...
Eric Allen Hall, “Arthur Ashe: Tennis and Justice in the Civil Rights Era” (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2014)
04 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When he died from AIDS in 1993, Arthur Ashe was universally hailed as a man of principle, grace, and wisdom–a world-class athlete who had transcende...
John Morrow and Jeffrey Sammons, “Harlem’s Rattlers and the Great War” (University Press of Kansas, 2014)
04 Nov 2014
Contributed by Lukas
John Morrow and Jeffrey Sammons share their insights on the story of the fabled 369th Infantry Regiment in their book, Harlem’s Rattlers and the Gre...
Catherine W. Bishir, ‘Crafting Lives: African American Artisans in New Bern, North Carolina, 1770-1900’ (UNC Press, 2013)
28 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Seeking to fill the gap in scholarship focused on African American artisans in the American South, Catherine W. Bishir uses the very specific location...
Melvin Ely, “Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War” (Vintage Books, 2004)
21 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In Israel on the Appomattox: A Southern Experiment in Black Freedom from the 1790s Through the Civil War (Vintage Books, 2004), Melvin Ely uses a trov...
Janet Sims-Wood, “Dorothy Porter Wesley at Howard University” (The History Press, 2014)
15 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
There was once a notion that black people had no meaningful history. It’s a notion Dorothy Porter Wesley spent her entire career debunking. Through ...
Adam Ewing, “The Age Of Garvey: How A Jamaican Activist Created A Mass Movement And Changed Global Black Politics” (Princeton UP, 2014)
09 Oct 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Adam Ewing acknowledges the enduring, if reductive, image of Garveyism – “the parades and shipping lines and colonization schemes” – in its ea...
Lauren Araiza, ‘To March for Others: The United Farm Workers and the Black Freedom Movement’ (U. of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
24 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Co-founded in 1962 by César Chávez and Dolores Huerta, the National Farm Workers Association would eventually become the United Farm Workers (U...
Karl Spracklen, “Whiteness and Leisure” (Palgrave Macmillan, 2013)
12 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Our taken for granted assumptions are questioned in a new book by Karl Spracklen, a professor of leisure studies at Leeds Metropolitan University in E...
Edward E. Baptist, “The Half Has Never Been Told: Slavery and the Making of American Capitalism” (Basic Books, 2014)
08 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
An unflinching examination of the trauma, violence, opportunism, and vision that combined to create the empire for slavery that was the Old South, Ed ...
Gabriel Solis, “Thelonious Monk Quartet with John Coltrane at Carnegie Hall” (Oxford UP, 2013)
07 Sep 2014
Contributed by Lukas
On November 29, 1957, Dizzy Gillespie, Billie Holliday, Zoot Sims, Chet Baker, Sonny Rollins, and a multi-talented young R&B player who played jazz th...
Bruce Ackerman, “We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revolution” (Harvard UP, 2013)
02 Aug 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Bruce Ackerman is the Sterling Professor of Law and Political Science at Yale University. His book, We the People, Volume 3: The Civil Rights Revol...
Toby Green, “The Rise of the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade in Western Africa, 1300-1589” (Cambridge UP, 2011)
30 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Slavery was pervasive in the Ancient World: you can find it in Mesopotamia, Egypt, Greece, and Rome. In Late Antiquity , however, slavery went into de...
Lorena Turner, “The Michael Jacksons” (Little Moth Press, 2014)
23 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
During his lifetime, Michael Jackson became a global icon. Michael Jackson was beloved by millions; his journey began as he became a boy star with The...
Abigail Perkiss, “Making Good Neighbors: Civil Rights, Liberalism and Integration in Postwar Philadelphia” (Cornell UP, 2014)
16 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Sitting in my home office this morning, I’ve periodically looked up from my computer screen and out the window to see who the dog is barking at. Som...
Robert E. Gutsche Jr., “A Transplanted Chicago: Race, Place and the Press in Iowa City” (McFarland, 2014)
01 Jul 2014
Contributed by Lukas
The city of Iowa City’s website promotes its “small-town hospitality” and its focus on “culture.” But a closer look at Iowa City, home to 70...
Ian Haney Lopez, “Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class” (Oxford UP, 2014)
30 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Ian Haney Lopez is the author of Dog Whistle Politics: How Coded Racial Appeals Have Reinvented Racism and Wrecked the Middle Class (Oxford UP 2014). ...
Luke E. Harlow, “Religion, Race, and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
26 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Luke E. Harlow, Religion, Race and the Making of Confederate Kentucky, 1830-1880 (Cambridge University Press, 2014) examines the role of religion, and...
David Williams, “I Freed Myself: African American Self-Emancipation in the Civil War Era” (Cambridge UP, 2014)
05 Jun 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Lincoln was very clear–at least in public–that the Civil War was not fought over slavery: it was, he said, for the preservation of the Union first...
Christine Knauer, “Let Us Fight as Free Men: Black Soldiers and Civil Rights” (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2014)
20 May 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Recent controversies over integrating the military have focused on issues of gender and sexuality. In the 1940s and 50s, however, the issue was racial...
Vershawn Young et al., “Other People’s English” (Teacher’s College Press, 2013)
15 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
In linguistics, we all happily and glibly affirm that there is no “better” or “worse” among languages (or dialects, or varieties), although we...
Marc Myers “Why Jazz Happened” (University of California Press, 2014)
06 Apr 2014
Contributed by Lukas
How did jazz take shape? Why does jazz have so many styles? Why do jazz songs get longer as the twentieth century proceeds? Marc Myers, in his fascina...
Arica L. Coleman, “That the Blood Stay Pure” (Indiana UP, 2014)
18 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Arica Coleman did not start out to write a legal history of “the one-drop rule,” but as she began exploring the relationship between African Amer...
N. Jeremi Duru, “Advancing the Ball: Race, Reformation, and the Quest for Equal Coaching Opportunity in the NFL” (Oxford University Press, 2011)
06 Mar 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Each year, following the end of the NFL season, there is a blizzard of activity as teams with disappointing records fire their head coaches and look f...
Kevin Quashie, “The Sovereignty of Quiet: Beyond Resistance in Black Culture” (Rutgers UP, 2012)
17 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Musician James Brown is famous for his civil rights slogan, “Say it loud; I’m Black and I’m proud,” illustrating the argument that Kevin Quash...
Aram Goudsouzian, “Down to the Crossroads: Civil Rights, Black Power, and the Meredith March Against Fear” (FSG, 2014)
12 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
When I was a kid in the 1970s, I really didn’t know anything about the “Civil Rights Movement.” I knew who Martin Luther King was, and that he h...
Adam Henig, “Alex Haley’s Roots: An Author’s Odyssey” (2014)
05 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Alex Haley’s 1976 book Roots: The Saga of an American Family still stands as a memorable epic journey into the history of African Americans during t...
Ravi K. Perry, “Black Mayors, White Majorities: The Balancing Act of Racial Politics” (University of Nebraska Press, 2014)
03 Feb 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Do black mayors face a different governing challenge than other mayors? Ravi K. Perry explores this question in his Black Mayors, White Majorities: Th...
Cindy Hooper, “Conflict: African American Women and the New Dilemma of Race and Gender Politics” (Praeger Press, 2012)
29 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Cindy Hooper is a veteran of various local, state, and national political campaigns. She is the founder of a national organization for African Americ...
Amy L. Wood, “Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-1940” (UNC Press, 2011)
25 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Host Jonathan Judaken talks with author and professor Amy Wood about her book, Lynching and Spectacle: Witnessing Racial Violence in America, 1890-194...
Keith Waters, “The Studio Recordings of the Miles Davis Quintet, 1965-1968” (Oxford UP, 2011)
18 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
“…when people were hearing us, they were hearing the avant-garde on the one hand, and they were hearing the history of jazz that led up to it on t...
Christina Greer, “Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream” (Oxford UP, 2013)
13 Jan 2014
Contributed by Lukas
Christina Greer is the author of Black Ethnics: Race, Immigration, and the Pursuit of the American Dream (Oxford University Press, 2013). Greer is ass...
Nathaniel Millett, “The Maroons of Prospect Bluff and their Quest for Freedom in the Atlantic World” (UP of Florida, 2013)
20 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
This is a very timely book, coming as it does in the midst of the 200th anniversary of the War of 1812 — the war that gave birth to the maroon commu...
Julia H. Lee, “Interracial Encounters: Reciprocal Representations in African and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937” (NYU Press, 2011)
18 Dec 2013
Contributed by Lukas
Julia H. Lee is the author of Interracial Encounters: Reciprocal Representations in African and Asian American Literatures, 1896-1937 (New York Univer...