New Books in African American Studies
Episodes
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 ...
Bianca C. Williams et al., "Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education" (SUNY Press, 2021)
23 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education (SUNY Press, 2021) provides a multidi...
Paul T. Murray, "Seeing Jesus in the Eyes of the Oppressed: Franciscans Working for Peace and Justice" (AAFH, 2022)
20 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Following World War II, the United States enjoyed unprecedented prosperity as the post-war economy exploded. While Americans pondered affluence, U.S. ...
Louis M. Maraj, "Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics" (Utah State UP, 2020)
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Black or Right: Anti/Racist Campus Rhetorics (Utah State University Press, 2020) explores notions of Blackness in white institutional—particularly...
Brandi Clay Brimmer, "Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, and Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South" (Duke UP, 2020)
14 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Claiming Union Widowhood: Race, Respectability, and Poverty in the Post-Emancipation South (Duke UP, 2020), Brandi Clay Brimmer analyzes the US p...
Sarah Deutsch, "Making a Modern U.S. West: The Contested Terrain of a Region and Its Borders, 1898-1940" (U Nebraska Press, 2022)
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
To many Americans in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, the West was simultaneously the greatest symbol of American opportunity, the greatest sto...
Elizabeth Alexander, "The Trayvon Generation" (Grand Central, 2022)
13 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Trayvon Generation (Grand Central, 2022) expands upon Elizabeth Alexander’s gripping essay — under the same name — originally published in...
Ethnography, Humility, Identity, and the Academy
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In today’s episode of How To Be Wrong we welcome Dr. Khytie Brown, who is an assistant professor in the Department of Religious Studies at the Un...
Mark Anthony Neal, "Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive" (NYU Press, 2022)
10 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
We are living in an era of unprecedented access to popular culture: contemporary digital infrastructure provides anyone with an internet connection ac...
Treva B. Lindsey, "America, Goddam: Violence, Black Women, and the Struggle for Justice" (U California Press, 2022)
09 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Echoing the energy of Nina Simone's searing protest song that inspired the title, this book is a call to action in our collective journey toward just ...
Peter C. Zimmerman, "The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight" (UP of Mississippi, 2021)
08 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
The Jazz Masters: Setting the Record Straight (UP of Mississippi, 2021) is a celebration of jazz and the men and women who created and transformed it...
Andrea C. Mosterman, "Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York" (Cornell UP, 2021)
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Spaces of Enslavement: A History of Slavery and Resistance in Dutch New York (Cornell UP, 2021), Andrea C. Mosterman addresses the persistent myt...
Tajja Isen, "Some of My Best Friends: Essays on Lip Service" (Atria/One Signal, 2022)
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this stunning debut collection, Catapult editor-in-chief and award-winning voice actor Tajja Isen explores the absurdity of living in a world tha...
A Newly Discovered Essay by Fredrick Douglas: "Slavery" (1894-1895)
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Today’s guest is Leslie Leonard, who received their doctorate in American Studies and 19th C. American Literature from the University of Massachuset...
Reighan Gillam, "Visualizing Black Lives: Ownership and Control in Afro-Brazilian Media" (U Illinois Press, 2022)
07 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
A new generation of Afro-Brazilian media producers have emerged to challenge a mainstream that frequently excludes them. Reighan Gillam delves into th...
Melissa Ford, "A Brick and a Bible: Black Women's Radical Activism in the Midwest During the Great Depression" (Southern Illinois UP, 2022)
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this first study of Black radicalism in midwestern cities before the civil rights movement, Melissa Ford connects the activism of Black women who c...
Andy Hines, "Outside Literary Studies: Black Criticism and the University" (U Chicago Press, 2022)
06 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
This striking contribution to Black literary studies examines the practices of Black writers in the mid-twentieth century to revise our understanding ...
Irvin J. Hunt, "Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics, and the Black Cooperative Movement" (UNC Press, 2022)
02 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In their darkest hours over the course of the twentieth century, W. E. B. Du Bois, Ella Baker, George Schuyler, and Fannie Lou Hamer gathered hundreds...
Colleen Wessel-McCoy, "Freedom Church of the Poor: Martin Luther King Jr's Poor People's Campaign" (Fortress Academic, 2021)
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
When The Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. looked over into the promised land and tried to discern how we would get there, he called the poor to le...
Richard Stamz and Patrick A. Roberts, "Give 'em Soul, Richard!: Race, Radio, and Rhythm and Blues in Chicago" (U Illinois Press, 2010)
01 Jun 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Give 'em Soul, Richard!: Race, Radio, and Rhythm and Blues in Chicago (U Illinois Press, 2010) is the remarkable story of a remarkable man. Richard S...
Alejandro de la Fuente and Ariela J. Gross, "Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana" (Cambridge UP, 2020)
31 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
How did Africans become 'blacks' in the Americas? Becoming Free, Becoming Black: Race, Freedom, and Law in Cuba, Virginia, and Louisiana (Cambridge ...
Brandon T. Jett, "Race, Crime, and Policing in the Jim Crow South" (Louisiana State UP, 2021)
27 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In this groundbreaking work, Professor Brandon T. Jett unearths how police departments evolved with the urbanization of the Jim Crow South, to targ...
Sean J. Drake, "Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb" (U California Press, 2022)
25 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Academic Apartheid: Race and the Criminalization of Failure in an American Suburb (U California Press, 2022), sociologist Sean J. Drake addresses...
Elizabeth Rodrigues, "Collecting Lives: Critical Data Narrative as Modernist Aesthetic in Early Twentieth-Century Us Literatures" (U Michigan Press, 2022)
17 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
On a near-daily basis, data is being used to narrate our lives. Categorizing algorithms drawn from amassed personal data to assign narrative destinies...
On Women of Color in American Islam
16 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sylvia Chan-Malik is Associate Professor in the Departments of American and Women’s and Gender Studies at Rutgers University, New Brunswick. She tal...
Zachary F. Price, "Black Dragon: Afro-Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination" (Ohio State UP, 2022)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Black Dragon: Afro Asian Performance and the Martial Arts Imagination (Ohio State UP, 2022), Zachary F. Price illuminates martial arts as a site ...
Cynthia Parker-Ohene, "Daughters of Harriet: Poems" (UP of Colorado, 2022)
13 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Drawing inspiration from the life of Harriet Tubman, Cynthia Parker-Ohene's poetic narratives follow a historical arc of consciousness of Black folks:...
Paul M. Heideman, "Class Struggle and the Color Line: American Socialism and the Race Question 1900-1930" (Haymarket Books, 2022)
11 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Class Struggle and the Color Line: American Socialism and the Race Question, 1900-1930 (Haymarket Books, 2018), Paul Heideman collects, for the f...
Glenda E. Gilmore, "Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South" (UNC Press, 2022)
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In Romare Bearden in the Homeland of His Imagination: An Artist's Reckoning with the South (UNC Press, 2022), Glenda Gilmore meticulously documents...
Nicole Charles, "Suspicion: Vaccines, Hesitancy, and the Affective Politics of Protection in Barbados" (Duke UP, 2022)
10 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
In 2014 Barbados introduced a vaccine to prevent certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and reduce the risk of cervical cancer in young wom...
Dhanveer Singh Brar, "Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century" (Goldsmiths Press, 2021)
06 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Teklife, Ghettoville, Eski: The Sonic Ecologies of Black Music in the Early 21st Century (Goldsmiths Press, 2021) uses three Black electronic musics...
Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, "Elite Capture: How the Powerful Took Over Identity Politics (and Everything Else)" (Haymarket, 2022)
05 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
“Identity politics” is everywhere, polarizing discourse from the campaign trail to the classroom and amplifying antagonisms in the media, both onl...
Aaron Cohen, "Move On Up: Chicago Soul Music and Black Cultural Power" (U Chicago Press, 2019)
04 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Curtis Mayfield. The Chi-Lites. Chaka Khan. Chicago’s place in the history of soul music is rock solid. But for Chicagoans, soul music in its heyda...
The Future of Statues: A Conversation with Alex Von Tunzelmann
03 May 2022
Contributed by Lukas
What are the rights and wrongs of toppling statues? Sometimes everyone agrees it’s a good idea. After the second world war, for example, the defeat ...
Marlon B. Ross, "Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness" (Duke UP, 2022)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Sissy Insurgencies: A Racial Anatomy of Unfit Manliness (Duke University Press, 2022) by Marlon B. Ross focuses on the figure of the sissy in order ...
Rana A. Hogarth, "Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840" (UNC Press, 2017)
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Medicine and slavery went hand-in-hand. But what was the nature of this vile partnership? In Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the ...
Hurricanes
28 Apr 2022
Contributed by Lukas
Kim talks with Sonya Posmentier about hurricanes. Sonya writes about hurricanes and diaspora in her book, Cultivation and Catastrophe: The Lyric Ecol...