New Books in African American Studies

Jeremi Suri, "Civil War by Other Means: America's Long and Unfinished Fight for Democracy" (PublicAffairs, 2022)

02 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In 1865, the Confederacy was defeated, but the military victory did not end the tensions of the war or signal acceptance of a new, more equal nation. ...

Matthew Delmont, "Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad" (Viking, 2022)

02 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Matthew Delmont about his new book Half American: The Epic Story of African Americans Fighting World War II at Home and Abroad (V...

Sarah Quesada, "The African Heritage of Latinx and Caribbean Literature" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The African Heritage of Latinx and Caribbean Literature (Cambridge University Press, 2022) unearths a buried African archive within widely-read Lati...

Elizabeth Drame et al., "The Resistance, Persistence and Resilience of Black Families Raising Children with Autism" (Peter Lang, 2020)

01 Nov 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Resistance, Persistence and Resilience of Black Families Raising Children with Autism (Peter Lang, 2020) presents nuanced perspectives in the for...

Sam W. Haynes, "Unsettled Land: From Revolution to Republic, the Struggle for Texas" (Basic Books, 2022)

31 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Texas Revolution has long been cast as an epic episode in the origins of the American West. As the story goes, larger-than-life figures like Sam H...

Mario Nisbett, "The Workings of Diaspora: Jamaican Maroons and the Claims to Sovereignty" (Lexington Books, 2021)

29 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Engaging the past, the present, and the future, The Workings of Diaspora: Jamaican Maroons and the Claims to Sovereignty (Lexington Books, 2021) sh...

Ross Cole, "The Folk: Music, Modernity, and the Political Imagination" (U California Press, 2021)

28 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Folk: Music, Modernity, and the Political Imagination (U California Press, 2021), Ross Cole revisits the remarkable upswell of interest in f...

Guy Lancaster, "American Atrocity: The Types of Violence in Lynching" (U Arkansas Press, 2021)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Lynching is often viewed as a narrow form of violence: either the spontaneous act of an angry mob against accused individuals, or a demonstration of w...

Lynn M. Hudson, "West of Jim Crow: The Fight Against California's Color Line" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

California was born "under the shadow of slavery," writes Lynn Hudson, professor of history at the University of Illinois at Chicago. In West of Jim ...

Kelisha B. Graves, ed., "Nannie Helen Burroughs: A Documentary Portrait of an Early Civil Rights Pioneer, 1900-1959" (U Notre Dame Press, 2019)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Nannie Helen Burroughs (1879-1961) is just one of the many African American intellectuals whose work has long been excluded from the literary canon. I...

Jose O. Fernandez, "Against Marginalization: Convergences in Black and Latinx Literatures" (Ohio State UP, 2022)

26 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Against Marginalization: Convergences in Black and Latinx Literatures (Ohio State University Press, 2022), Jose O. Fernandez examines thematic, ...

Dan Immergluck, "Red Hot City: Housing, Race, and Exclusion in Twenty-First-Century Atlanta" (U California Press, 2022)

25 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Atlanta, the capital of the American South, is at the red-hot core of expansion, inequality, and political relevance. In recent decades, central Atlan...

Kenyon Gradert, "Puritan Spirits in the Abolitionist Imagination" (U Chicago Press, 2020)

25 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Modern imagination of the Puritans typically casts them in a repressive, conservative light. But that wasn't always the case. Abolitionist activists ...

Kwame Edwin Otu, "Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana" (U California Press, 2022)

24 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Amphibious Subjects: Sasso and the Contested Politics of Queer Self-Making in Neoliberal Ghana (University of California Press, 2022) is an ethnogr...

On Harriet Beecher Stowe's "Uncle Tom's Cabin"

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

By the early 19th century, slavery was still a brutal reality in southern U.S. states, and a growing movement to abolish slavery nationwide was taking...

Scott Bukatman, "Black Panther" (U Texas Press, 2022)

21 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Black Panther was the first Black superhero in mainstream American comics. Black Panther was a cultural phenomenon that broke box office records. Ye...

David Weinfeld, "An American Friendship: Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism" (Cornell UP, 2022)

18 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In An American Friendship: Horace Kallen, Alain Locke, and the Development of Cultural Pluralism (Cornell UP, 2022), David Weinfeld presents the bio...

Patricia A. Turner, "Trash Talk: Anti-Obama Lore and Race in the Twenty-First Century" (U California Press, 2022)

18 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Barack Obama and his family have been the objects of rumors, legends, and conspiracy theories unprecedented in US politics. Outbreaks of anti-Obama lo...

Radicalism, Humility, and Racism in America

17 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today’s episode focuses on the new book by Lydia Moland, who is a Professor of Philosophy at Colby College. Her book, Lydia Maria Child: A Radical ...

Charles Sawyer, "B. B. King: From Indianola to Icon: A Personal Odyssey with the 'King of the Blues'" (Schiffer Publishing, 2022)

14 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Want to take a trip with the king of the Blues? As B.B. King’s photographer and original biographer, Charlie Sawyer was along for the ride. In B.B....

Jill Hicks-Keeton and Cavan W. Concannon, "Does Scripture Speak for Itself?: The Museum of the Bible and the Politics of Interpretation" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

13 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Is the Bible the unembellished Word of God or the product of human agency? There are different answers to that question. And they lie at the heart of ...

Sami Schalk, "Black Disability Politics" (Duke UP, 2022)

12 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Disability Politics (Duke UP, 2022) Sami Schalk explores how issues of disability have been and continue to be central to Black activism fr...

Anima Adjepong, "Afropolitan Projects: Redefining Blackness, Sexualities, and Culture from Houston to Accra" (UNC Press, 2021)

11 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Beyond simplistic binaries of the dark continent or Africa Rising, Africans at home and abroad articulate their identities through their quotidian pra...

Kathryn Gin Lum, "Heathen: Religion and Race in American History" (Harvard UP, 2022)

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

If an eighteenth-century parson told you that the difference between "civilization and heathenism is sky-high and star-far," the words would hardly co...

Emerald Garner, "Finding My Voice" (Haymarket, 2022)

07 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this unforgetable memoir, Emerald Garner recounts her father's cruel and unjust murder, the immense pain that followed, the pressures of an exploit...

Adam Elliott-Cooper, "Black Resistance to British Policing" (Manchester UP, 2021)

05 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As police racism unsettles Britain's tolerant self-image, Black Resistance to British Policing (Manchester UP, 2021) details the activism that made ...

On Trafficking Hadassah and Book of Esther

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Ericka Shawndricka Dunbar (she/her/hers) is an adjunct professor at Spelman College (Atlanta, GA) in the Religious Studies Department. She received he...

Sarah F. Derbew, "Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

04 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Sarah Derbew’s new book Untangling Blackness in Greek Antiquity (Cambridge UP, 2022) asks how should articulations of blackness from the fifth ce...

NBN Classic: Courtney Pace, "Freedom Faith: The Womanist Vision of Prathia Hall" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

02 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. Freedom Faith: The Womanist Vi...

NBN Classic: Anne Balay, "Semi Queer: Inside the World of Gay, Trans, and Black Truck Drivers" (UNC Press, 2018)

02 Oct 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. In this multi-layered ethnogra...

Charisse Burden-Stelly and Jodi Dean, "Organize, Fight, Win: Black Communist Women's Political Writing" (Verso, 2022)

28 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Black Communist women throughout the early to mid-twentieth century fought for and led mass campaigns in the service of building collective power in t...

NBN Classic: Garrett Felber, "Those Who Know Don't Say: The Nation of Islam, the Black Freedom Movement, and the Carceral State" (UNC Press, 2020)

25 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. Challenging incarceration and ...

NBN Classic: Erica Armstrong Dunbar, "She Came to Slay: The Life and Times of Harriet Tubman" (37 Ink, 2019)

25 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. Harriet Tubman is best known a...

NBN Classic: Alys Eve Weinbaum, "The Afterlife of Reproductive Slavery: Biocapitalism and Black Feminism’s Philosophy of History" (Duke UP, 2019)

24 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. In The Afterlife of Reproducti...

NBN Classic: Marcia Chatelain, "Franchise: The Golden Arches in Black America" (Liveright, 2020)

24 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

This episode proved remarkably popular, so we're reposting it as an NBN classic for those who missed it the first time. Franchise: The Golden Arches i...

Leslie M. Harris, "Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies" (U Georgia Press, 2019)

23 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery and the University: Histories and Legacies (University of Georgia Press, 2019), edited by Leslie M. Harris, James T. Campbell, and Alfred L. B...

Charles L. Chavis Jr., "The Silent Shore: The Lynching of Matthew Williams and the Politics of Racism in the Free State" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2022)

22 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

On December 4, 1931, a mob of white men in Salisbury, Maryland, lynched and set ablaze a twenty-three-year-old Black man named Matthew Williams. His g...

Abby L. Goode, "Agrotopias: An American Literary History of Sustainability" (UNC Press, 2022)

20 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this book, Abby L. Goode reveals the foundations of American environmentalism and its enduring connections to racism, eugenics, and agrarian ideals...

Raúl Pérez, "The Souls of White Jokes: How Racist Humor Fuels White Supremacy" (Stanford UP, 2022)

19 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Having a "good" sense of humor generally means being able to take a joke without getting offended—laughing even at a taboo thought or at another's e...

Kaysha Corinealdi, "Panama in Black: Afro-Caribbean World Making in the Twentieth Century" (Duke UP, 2022)

19 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Panama in Black: Afro-Caribbean World Making in the Twentieth Century (Duke UP, 2022), Kaysha Corinealdi traces the multigenerational activism of...

Aria S. Halliday, "Buy Black: How Black Women Transformed US Pop Culture" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

16 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Buy Black: How Black Women Transformed US Pop Culture (U Illinois Press, 2022) examines the role American Black women play in Black consumption in th...

Derek H. Alderman et al., "Remembering Enslavement: Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum" (U Georgia Press, 2022)

13 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Remembering Enslavement: Reassembling the Southern Plantation Museum (U Georgia Press, 2022) explores plantation museums as sites for contesting and ...

Jodi Skipper, "Behind the Big House: Reconciling Slavery, Race, and Heritage in the U.S. South" (U Iowa Press, 2022)

09 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When residents and tourists visit sites of slavery, whose stories are told? All too often the lives of slaveowners are centered, obscuring the lives o...

Lorgia García Peña, "Translating Blackness: Latinx Colonialities in Global Perspective" (Duke UP, 2022)

08 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Translating Blackness: Latinx Colonialities in Global Perspective (Duke University Press, 2022), Lorgia García Peña considers Black Latinidad...

Decoteau Irby, "Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership" (Harvard Education Press, 2021)

05 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

An incisive case study of changemaking in action, Stuck Improving: Racial Equity and School Leadership (Harvard Education Press, 2021) analyzes the...

Marcus Nevius on Becoming a Historian, Marronage, Slave Resistance, and More!

03 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today's episode of "New Books in African American Studies" is special. Why, you might ask? Because today's episode marks my 100th episode on the NBN...

Aria S. Halliday, "Buy Black: How Black Women Transformed US Pop Culture" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

01 Sep 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Buy Black: How Black Women Transformed US Pop Culture (University of Illinois Press, 2022), Aria Halliday negotiates the line between "sell out...

John M. Kinder and Jason A. Higgins, "Service Denied: Marginalized Veterans in Modern American History" (U Massachusetts Press, 2022)

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Wartime military service is held up as a marker of civic duty and patriotism, yet the rewards of veteran status have never been equally distributed. C...

Kate Phillips, "Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery" (Luath Press, 2022)

31 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Bought & Sold: Scotland, Jamaica and Slavery (Luath Press, 2022) by Kate Phillips traces the story of how and why thousands of Scots made money from ...

E. James West, "Our Kind of Historian: The Work and Activism of Lerone Bennett Jr." (U Massachusetts Press, 2022)

30 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Journalist, activist, popular historian, and public intellectual, Lerone Bennett Jr. left an indelible mark on twentieth-century American history and ...

Jeroen Dewulf, "Afro-Atlantic Catholics: America's First Black Christians" (U Notre Dame Press, 2022)

26 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Black Christianity in America has long been studied as a blend of indigenous African and Protestant elements. Jeroen Dewulf redirects the conversation...

Gene Andrew Jarrett, "Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird" (Princeton UP, 2022)

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A major poet, Paul Laurence Dunbar (1872-1906) was one of the first African American writers to garner international recognition in the wake of emanci...

Studying Black Religious Thought

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Journal of Black Religious Thought advances critical scholarship in the fields of Religious Studies – with special attention to Black religiou...

Autumn Womack, "The Matter of Black Living: The Aesthetic Experiment of Racial Data, 1880-1930" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

As the nineteenth century came to a close and questions concerning the future of African American life reached a fever pitch, many social scientists a...

Jamil W. Drake, "To Know the Soul of a People: Religion, Race, and the Making of Southern Folk" (Oxford UP, 2022)

22 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

To Know the Soul of a People: Religion, Race, and the Making of Southern Folk (Oxford UP, 2022) is a history of religion and race in the agricultural...

Antonio C. Cuyler, "Access, Diversity, Equity and Inclusion in Cultural Organizations: Insights from the Careers of Executive Opera Managers of Color in the US" (Routledge, 2020)

18 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Where are the success stories for people of color in opera? In Access, Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion in Cultural Organizations: Insights from the ...

Julius B. Fleming Jr., "Black Patience: Performance, Civil Rights, and the Unfinished Project of Emancipation" (NYU Press, 2022)

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

“Freedom, Now!” This rallying cry became the most iconic phrase of the Civil Rights Movement, challenging the persistent command that Black people...

His Sister, Her Monologue: A Discussion with Hilton Als

17 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In this 2011 episode from The Vault, Hilton Als reads from, and discusses, His Sister, Her Monologue, a novella he published in Mcsweeney's #35. A...

Tom Zoellner, "Island on Fire: The Revolt That Ended Slavery in the British Empire" (Harvard UP, 2020)

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

For five horrific weeks after Christmas in 1831, Jamaica was convulsed by an uprising of its enslaved people. What started as a peaceful labor strike ...

On W. E. B. DuBois' "The Souls of Black Folk"

16 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Nearly 40 years after the Emancipation Proclamation was signed, American writer, sociologist and civil rights activist W. E. B. DuBois shed light on B...

On Frederick Douglass

15 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

When Frederick Douglass was born into slavery in 1818, it was illegal for him to learn the alphabet. Slave masters feared the power of a literate slav...

Christopher M. Reali, "Music and Mystique in Muscle Shoals" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

12 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The forceful music that rolled out of Muscle Shoals in the 1960s and 1970s shaped hits by everyone from Wilson Pickett and Aretha Franklin to the Roll...

Saladin Ambar, "Stars and Shadows: The Politics of Interracial Friendship from Jefferson to Obama" (Oxford UP, 2022)

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Slavery and its lingering remnants remain a plague on the United States, continuing to foster animosity between races that hinders the understanding a...

Writing Beyond a Limited Narrative: A Conversation with Hari Ziyad

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to The Academic Life! In this episode you’ll hear about: Hari Ziyad’s journey through higher education. Why they became editor of RaceBa...

Simone White, "Or, on Being the Other Woman" (Duke UP, 2022)

11 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In or, on being the other woman (Duke UP, 2022), Simone White considers the dynamics of contemporary black feminist life. Throughout this book-lengt...

On Zora Neale Hurston's "Their Eyes Were Watching God"

09 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Zora Neale Hurston was an important figure in the Harlem Renaissance, but her novels didn’t conform to the style of her contemporaries. As a result,...

Miriam Thaggert, "Riding Jane Crow: African American Women on the American Railroad" (U Illinois Press, 2022)

08 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Miriam Thaggert illuminates the stories of African American women as passengers and as workers on the nineteenth- and early-twentieth-century railroad...

Daniel T. Fleming, "Living the Dream: The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day" (UNC Press, 2022)

05 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Living the Dream: The Contested History of Martin Luther King Jr. Day (UNC Press, 2022) tells the history behind the establishment of Martin Luther K...

Corey Robin, "The Enigma of Clarence Thomas" (Metropolitan Books, 2019)

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Most people can tell you two things about Clarence Thomas: Anita Hill accused him of sexual harassment, and he almost never speaks from the bench. Her...

Victoria Reyes, "Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope" (Stanford UP, 2022)

04 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope (Stanford University Press, 2022), sociologist Victoria Reyes combines her personal experiences...

Lindsay Pérez Huber and Susana M. Muñoz, "Why They Hate Us: How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education" (Teachers College Press, 2021)

03 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Why They Hate Us: How Racist Rhetoric Impacts Education (Teachers College Press, 2021) examines how racist political rhetoric has created damaging an...

Will Jawando, "My Seven Black Fathers: A Young Activist's Memoir of Race, Family, and the Mentors Who Made Him Whole" (FSG, 2022)

01 Aug 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Will Jawando tells a deeply affirmative story of hope and respect for men of color at a time when Black men are routinely stigmatized. As a boy growin...

Hawa Allan, "Insurrection: Rebellion, Civil Rights, and the Paradoxical State of Black Citizenship" (Norton, 2022)

29 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The little-known and under-studied 1807 Insurrection Act was passed to give the president the ability to deploy federal military forces to fend off la...

Peter H. Wood, "Black Majority: Negroes in Colonial South Carolina from 1670 Through the Stono Rebellion" (Norton, 1996)

29 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a podcast channel on the New Books Network. I am your host, Adam Xavier McNeil. Today’s podcast is...

Michael K. Beauchamp, "Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815" (LSU Press, 2021)

27 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

M. K. Beauchamp's Instruments of Empire: Colonial Elites and U.S. Governance in Early National Louisiana, 1803–1815 (LSU Press, 2021) examines the...

Traci Parker, "Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s" (UNC Press, 2019)

22 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Department Stores and the Black Freedom Movement: Workers, Consumers, and Civil Rights from the 1930s to the 1980s (UNC Press, 2019), Traci Parke...

Darts and Lasers: The Future of Science Fiction, Afro-Futurism, and Feminist Speculative Fiction

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

It’s stardate 99040.01 and lead producer Jay Cockburn is temporarily taking over command of Darts and Letters for an episode. For this episode, as...

Gabrielle David, "Trailblazers: Black Women Who Helped Make America Great, American Firsts/American Icons" (2leaf Press, 2021)

20 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Since slavery, Black women have struggled to liberate themselves from racism and sexism. Yet despite these hurdles and under the most difficult circum...

Xine Yao, "Disaffected: The Cultural Politics of Unfeeling in Nineteenth-Century America" (Duke UP, 2021)

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

What is unfeeling? According to today’s guest, Xine Yao, unfeeling includes “a broad range of affective modes, including withholding, disregard, g...

Thulani Davis, "The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom" (Duke UP, 2022)

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In The Emancipation Circuit: Black Activism Forging a Culture of Freedom (Duke UP, 2022) Thulani Davis provides a sweeping rethinking of Reconstruc...

Black Trans Feminism

19 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Marquis Bey talks about the radical and abolitionist project of Black Trans Feminism. Rather than an identity formation, it is a politics and modality...

Victoria W. Wolcott, "Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement" (U Chicago Press, 2022)

18 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Living in the Future: Utopianism and the Long Civil Rights Movement (U Chicago Press, 2022) reveals the unexplored impact of utopian thought on the m...

Erin C. MacLeod, "Visions of Zion: Ethiopians and Rastafari in the Search for the Promised Land" (NYU Press, 2014)

15 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In reggae song after reggae song Bob Marley and other reggae singers speak of the Promised Land of Ethiopia. "Repatriation is a must!" they cry. The...

Anthony W. Wood, "Black Montana: Settler Colonialism and the Erosion of the Racial Frontier, 1877-1930" (U Nebraska Press, 2021)

14 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Toward the end of the nineteenth century, many African Americans moved westward as Greater Reconstruction came to a close. Though, along with Euro-Ame...

Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman, "Second-Class Daughters: Black Brazilian Women and Informal Adoption as Modern Slavery" (Cambridge UP, 2022)

13 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

A legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, Brazil is home to the largest number of African descendants outside Africa and the greatest number of domes...

David Silkenat, "Scars on the Land: An Environmental History of Slavery in the American South" (Oxford UP, 2022)

12 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

They worked Virginia's tobacco fields, South Carolina's rice marshes, and the Black Belt's cotton plantations. Wherever they lived, enslaved people fo...

Negro Literature

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Elizabeth McHenry talks about the moment in the history of African American literature in the decade following the 1896 legalization of segregation, t...

Shannen Dee Williams, "Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle" (Duke UP, 2022)

11 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Subversive Habits: Black Catholic Nuns in the Long African American Freedom Struggle (Duke UP, 2022), Shannen Dee Williams, provides the first f...

H. H. Leonards, "Rosa Parks Beyond the Bus: Life, Lessons, and Leadership" (R. H. Boyd, 2022)

08 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Rosa Parks Beyond the Bus: Life, Lessons, and Leadership (R. H. Boyd, 2022) is a collection of inspiring and instructive memories compiled from the d...

Xinling Li, "Black Masculinity and Hip-Hop Music: Black Gay Men Who Rap" (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019)

06 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Black Masculinity and Hip-Hop Music: Black Gay Men Who Rap (Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), XinLing Li offers an interdisciplinary study of hip-hop mu...

Jessica Lipsky, "It Ain't Retro: Daptone Records and the 21st-Century Soul Revolution" (Jawbone, 2021)

05 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Soul is the most powerful expression of American music--a distinct combination of roots, migration, race, culture, and politics packaged together for ...

Elisabeth R. Anker, "Ugly Freedoms" (Duke UP, 2022)

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Ugly Freedoms (Duke UP, 2022), Elisabeth R. Anker reckons with the complex legacy of freedom offered by liberal American democracy, outlining ho...

Mae Ngai, "The Chinese Question: The Gold Rushes, Chinese Migration, and Global Politics" (W. W. Norton, 2022)

04 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Between 1848 and 1899, miners extracted more gold from the earth than in the previous 3,000 years of human history combined. Each gold rush in this pe...

Stefanie K. Dunning, "Black to Nature: Pastoral Return and African American Culture" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)

01 Jul 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In Black to Nature: Pastoral Return and African American Culture (University Press of Mississippi, 2021), author Stefanie K. Dunning considers b...

Book Talk 53: Paul Edwards on Toni Morrison's "Playing in the Dark"

30 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Toni Morrison’s Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination is a must-read for anyone interested in American literature and in the...

Holly A. Pinheiro Jr., "The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice" (U Georgia Press, 2022)

29 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

The Families' Civil War: Black Soldiers and the Fight for Racial Justice (U Georgia Press, 2022) tells the stories of freeborn northern African Ameri...

Claire Bellerjeau and Tiffany Yecke Brooks, "Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True Story of Robert Townsend and Elizabeth" (Lyons Press, 2021)

28 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Today I talked to Claire Bellerjeau about her book (co-authored with Tiffany Yecke Brooks) Espionage and Enslavement in the Revolution: The True S...

Ruth Wilson Gilmore, "Abolition Geography: Essays Towards Liberation" (Verso, 2022)

27 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Gathering together Ruth Wilson Gilmore’s work from over three decades, Abolition Geography: Essays Toward Liberation (Verso, 2022) presents her si...

Anne Gray Fischer, "The Streets Belong to Us: Sex, Race, and Police Power from Segregation to Gentrification" (UNC Press, 2022)

23 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

Anne Gray Fischer speaks about her path to and through research, including how sex workers informed her analysis of policing and state violence, the...

Dayna Bowen Matthew, "Just Health: Treating Structural Racism to Heal America" (NYU Press, 2022)

23 Jun 2022

Contributed by Lukas

In the United States, systemic racism is embedded in policies and practices, thereby structuring American society to perpetuate inequality and all of ...