New Books Network
African American Studies
Law May 7, 2021

A Pattern of Violence

How the Law Classifies Crimes and What It Means for Justice

David Alan Sklansky

Hosted by Samuel Newton
In the wake of the George Floyd killing, many Americans are engaging in a renewed debate about the role violence and especially police violence, plays in American society. In A …

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Medicine May 5, 2021

Examining Tuskegee

The Infamous Syphilis Study and Its Legacy

Susan M. Reverby

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Some books are new, others are newly relevant – and so worth looking at from a new, contemporary perspective. Such is the case with Susan Reverby’s book Examining Tuskegee: The …
Communications April 30, 2021

Reimagining the Middle Passage

Black Resistance in Literature, Television, and Song

Tara T. Green

Hosted by Lee Pierce
From ships and novels to Mardi Gras, water, and television, how does the legacy of the Middle Passage, the leg of the Atlantic through which African people were trafficked as …
Performing Arts April 30, 2021

Sweet Tea

A Play

E. Patrick Johnson

Hosted by Andy Boyd
E. Patrick Johnson's Sweet Tea has been a monograph, a documentary film, a stage play, and now a published script from Northwestern University Press.  This play weaves together interviews Johnson conducted …
History April 30, 2021

The 1921 Tulsa Race Massacre

A Photographic History

Karlos K. Hill

Hosted by Mark Klobas
On the evening of May 31, 1921, thousands of white Oklahomans assaulted the Greenwood District of the city of Tulsa. In what would come to be known as the Tulsa …
Sex, Sexuality, and Sex Work April 29, 2021

The Black Queer Work of Ratchet

Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the (Anti)Politics of Respectability

Nikki Lane

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Nikki Lane's The Black Queer Work of Ratchet: Race, Gender, Sexuality, and the (Anti)Politics of Respectability (Palgrave MacMillan, 2019) enters as a corrective to the tendency to trivialize and (mis)appropriate …
History April 28, 2021

American Women's Suffrage

Voices from the Long Struggle for the Vote, 1776-1965

Susan Ware

Hosted by Mark Klobas
The ratification of the Nineteenth Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which granted women the right to vote nationwide, was the culmination of a long and oftentimes contentious …
Gender and Sexuality April 27, 2021

Black Boy Out of Time

A Memoir

Hari Ziyad

Hosted by Christina Gessler
One of nineteen children in a blended family, Hari Ziyad was raised by a Hindu Hare Kṛṣṇa mother and a Muslim father. Through reframing their own coming-of-age story, Ziyad takes …
Critical Theory April 27, 2021

The Generic Closet

Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom

Alfred L. Martin, Jr.

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
How do race and sexuality intersect in the American sitcom? In The Generic Closet: Black Gayness and the Black-Cast Sitcom (Indiana University Press, 2021),  Alfred L Martin, an assistant professor …
African American Studies April 26, 2021

Fugitive Pedagogy

Carter G. Woodson and the Art of Black Teaching

Jarvis R. Givens

Hosted by Adam McNeil
Welcome to New Books in African American Studies, a channel on the New Books Network. I am your host, Adam McNeil. On today’s podcast, I am interviewing Dr. Jarvis R …
Medicine April 23, 2021

Sweetness in the Blood

Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes

James Doucet-Battle

Hosted by Rachel Pagones
Decades of data cannot be ignored: African American adults are far more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes than white adults. But has science gone so far in racializing diabetes …
African American Studies April 23, 2021

Economy Hall

The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood

Fatima Shaik

Hosted by Adam McNeil
Fatima Shaik's book Economy Hall: The Hidden History of a Free Black Brotherhood (Historic New Orleans Collections, 2021) tells the story of the Sociâetâe d'Economie et d'Assistance Mutuelle, a New Orleans …
African American Studies April 22, 2021

At the Threshold of Liberty

Women, Slavery, and Shifting Identities in Washington, D.C.

Tamika Y. Nunley

Hosted by Adam McNeil
The capital city of a nation founded on the premise of liberty, nineteenth-century Washington, D.C., was both an entrepot of urban slavery and the target of abolitionist ferment. The growing …
Performing Arts April 19, 2021

Owed

Joshua Bennett

Hosted by Andy Boyd
Owed (Penguin, 2020) is the second collection of poems by Dr. Joshua Bennett, poet, professor, and artist. This volume is a wide-ranging, celebratory book focused on what Bennett calls "the Black quotidian," …
Critical Theory April 16, 2021

Redlining Culture

A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction

Richard Jean So

Hosted by Dave O'Brien
What is the story of race in American fiction? In Redlining Culture: A Data History of Racial Inequality and Postwar Fiction (Columbia University Press, 2020), Richard Jean So, an assistant professor of …
History April 12, 2021

Monumental

Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana

Brian K. Mitchell, Barrington S. Edwards and Nick Weldon

Hosted by Michael Vann
Dr. Brian K. Mitchell describes Reconstruction as the most misunderstood period in American history. In the Jim Crow era, there was a concerted effort to reverse the achievements of African …
Politics & Society April 9, 2021

Debating the Drug War

Race, Politics, and Media in the War on Drugs Debate

Michael Rosino

Hosted by Rachel Stuart
Since President Nixon coined the phrase, the "War on Drugs" has presented an important change in how people view and discuss criminal justice practices and drug laws. The term evokes …
American West April 9, 2021

Rodeo as Refuge, Rodeo as Rebellion

Gender, Race, and Identity in the American Rodeo

Elyssa Ford

Hosted by Stephen Hausmann
Imagine a rodeo rider atop a bucking bronco, hat in hand, straining to remain astride. Is the rider in your mind's eye white? Is the person male? Popular imaginings and high …
Literary Studies April 8, 2021

Laughing to Keep from Dying

African American Satire in the Twenty-First Century

Danielle Fuentes Morgan

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
The election of Barack Obama propelled the idea of a post-racial United States, or that the country had moved beyond race as a defining feature of social difference and beyond …
Political Science April 8, 2021

America's Peacemakers

The Community Relations Service and Civil Rights

Bertram Levine and Grande Lum

Hosted by Lilly Goren
The Community Relations Service (CRS) came into being alongside the Voting Rights Act—as part of the Act itself. And this organization was integrated into the Voting Rights Act in 196 …