African American Studies

African American Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of African America about their new books.

Jonathan W. White, "Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade" (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023)

March 15, 2024

Shipwrecked

Jonathan W. White

In Shipwrecked: A True Civil War Story of Mutinies, Jailbreaks, Blockade-Running, and the Slave Trade (Rowman & Littlefield, 2023), historian Jonathan…

Myisha Cherry, "Failures of Forgiveness: What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better" (Princeton UP, 2023)

March 15, 2024

Failures of Forgiveness

Myisha Cherry
Hosted by N'Kosi Oates

From religion to popular culture, institutions and people have shaped how we conceive forgiveness. Myisha Cherry, associate professor of philosophy, a…

Whitney Nell Stewart, "This Is Our Home: Slavery and Struggle on Southern Plantations" (UNC Press, 2023)

March 15, 2024

This Is Our Home

Whitney Nell Stewart
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

The cultural memory of plantations in the Old South has long been clouded by myth. A recent reckoning with the centrality of slavery to the US nationa…

Victoria Perry, "A Bittersweet Heritage: Slavery, Architecture and the British Landscape" (Hurst, 2022)

March 14, 2024

A Bittersweet Heritage

Victoria Perry
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

The 2020 toppling of slave-trader Edward Colston's statue by Black Lives Matter protesters in Bristol was a dramatic reminder of Britain's role in tra…

Thomas Mareite, "Conditional Freedom: Free Soil and Fugitive Slaves from the U.S. South to Mexico's Northeast, 1803-1861" (Brill, 2024)

March 13, 2024

Conditional Freedom

Thomas Mareite
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

While the literature on slave flight in nineteenth-century North America has commonly focused on fugitive slaves escaping to the U.S. North and Canada…

Korey Garibaldi, "Impermanent Blackness: The Making and Unmaking of Interracial Literary Culture in Modern America" (Princeton UP, 2023)

March 13, 2024

Impermanent Blackness

Korey Garibaldi

In Impermanent Blackness: The Making and Unmaking of Interracial Literary Culture in Modern America (Princeton UP, 2023), Korey Garibaldi explores int…

Judith Tick, "Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer Who Transformed American Song" (Norton, 2023)

March 12, 2024

Becoming Ella Fitzgerald

Judith Tick
Hosted by Kristen Turner

Ella Fitzgerald (1917–1996) was one of America’s greatest musicians. In this major biography, Becoming Ella Fitzgerald: The Jazz Singer who Transforme…

Surya Parekh, "Black Enlightenment" (Duke UP, 2023)

March 12, 2024

Black Enlightenment

Surya Parekh
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

In Black Enlightenment (Duke UP, 2023), Surya Parekh reimagines the Enlightenment from the position of the Black subject. Parekh examines the works of…

Sharon D. Wright Austin, "Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors" (Temple UP, 2023)

March 11, 2024

Political Black Girl Magic

Sharon D. Wright Austin
Hosted by Deidre Tyler

Political Black Girl Magic: The Elections and Governance of Black Female Mayors (Temple UP, 2023) explores black women's experiences as mayors in Amer…

Sean M. Kelley, "American Slavers: Merchants, Mariners, and the Transatlantic Commerce in Captives, 1644-1865" (Yale UP, 2023)

March 10, 2024

American Slavers

Sean M. Kelley
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

A total of 305,000 enslaved Africans arrived in the New World aboard American vessels over a span of two hundred years as American merchants and marin…

Ilyon Woo, "Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom" (Simon and Schuster, 2023)

March 9, 2024

Master Slave Husband Wife

Ilyon Woo
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

Ilyon Woo's Master Slave Husband Wife: An Epic Journey from Slavery to Freedom (Simon and Schuster, 2023) tells the remarkable true story of Ellen and…

Edda Fields-Black, "Combee: Harriet Tubman, the Combahee River Raid, and Black Freedom During the Civil War" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 7, 2024

Combee

Edda Fields-Black
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

Most Americans know of Harriet Tubman's legendary life: escaping enslavement in 1849, she led more than 60 others out of bondage via the Underground R…

Amy Coddington, "How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race" (U California Press, 2023)

March 6, 2024

How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop

Amy Coddington
Hosted by Katrina Anderson

How Hip Hop Became Hit Pop: Radio, Rap, and Race (U California Press, 2023) examines the programming practices at commercial radio stations in the 198…

Derron Wallace, "The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth" (Oxford UP, 2023)

March 4, 2024

The Culture Trap

Derron Wallace
Hosted by Dave O'Brien

How does race matter in schools? In The Culture Trap: Ethnic Expectations and Unequal Schooling for Black Youth (Oxford UP, 2023), Derron Wallace, th…

Horace J. Maxile, Jr. and Kristen M. Turner, "Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher's Guide" (Routledge, 2022)

February 27, 2024

Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey

Horace J. Maxile, Jr. and Kristen M. Turner
Hosted by Emily Ruth Allen

Race and Gender in the Western Music History Survey: A Teacher’s Guide provides concrete information and approaches that will help instructors include…

Matthew Fox-Amato, "Exposing Slavery: Photography, Human Bondage, and the Birth of Modern Visual Politics in America" (Oxford UP, 2019)

February 24, 2024

Exposing Slavery

Matthew Fox-Amato

Shortly after its introduction, photography transformed the ways Americans made political arguments using visual images. In the mid-19th century, phot…

Imani D. Owens, "Turn the World Upside Down: Empire and Unruly Forms of Black Folk Culture in the U.S. and Caribbean" (Columbia UP, 2023)

February 23, 2024

Turn the World Upside Down

Imani D. Owens

In the first half of the twentieth century, Black hemispheric culture grappled with the legacies of colonialism, U.S. empire, and Jim Crow. As writers…

Laurence Ralph, "Sito: An American Teenager and the City That Failed Him" (Grand Central Publishing, 2023)

February 21, 2024

Sito

Laurence Ralph
Hosted by Reighan Gillam

In September of 2019, Luis Alberto Quiñonez—known as Sito— was shot to death as he sat in his car in the Mission District of San Francisco. He was nin…

Norman Hill and Velma Murphy Hill, "Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain: The Extraordinary Story of Love, Civil Rights, and Labor Activism" (Regalo Press, 2023)

February 17, 2024

Climbing the Rough Side of the Mountain

Norman Hill and Velma Murphy Hill
Hosted by Thomas Discenna

The remarkable story of a couple who came together during the civil rights movement and made fighting for equality and civil and workers' rights their…

Jeanne Theoharis, "The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North: Segregation and Struggle outside of the South" (NYU Press, 2019)

February 12, 2024

The Strange Careers of the Jim Crow North

Jeanne Theoharis
Hosted by Beth Harpaz

In this New Books Network/Gotham Center for NYC History podcast, guest host Beth Harpaz, editor of the City University of New York website SUM, interv…