African American Studies

African American Studies

episodes

Interviews with scholars of African America about their new books.

Camille Owens, "Like Children: Black Prodigy and the Measure of the Human in America" (NYU Press, 2024)

October 3, 2024

Like Children

Camille Owens

Like Children: Black Prodigy and the Measure of the Human in America (NYU Press, 2024) argues that the child has been the key figure giving measure an…

Black Woman on Board

October 3, 2024

Black Woman on Board

Donna J. Nicol

Today’s book is: Black Woman on Board: Claudia Hampton, the California State University, and the Fight to Save Affirmative Action (University of Roche…

Steven T. Katz, "The Holocaust and New World Slavery: A Comparative History" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

September 30, 2024

The Holocaust and New World Slavery

Steven T. Katz
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

The Holocaust and New World Slavery: A Comparative History (Cambridge UP, 2019) offers the first, in-depth comparison of the Holocaust and new world s…

Andrew W. Kahrl, "The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

September 25, 2024

The Black Tax

Andrew W. Kahrl
Hosted by N'Kosi Oates

In The Black Tax: 150 Years of Theft, Exploitation, and Dispossession in America (U Chicago Press, 2024), Andrew W. Kahrl uncovers the history of ineq…

Wayne A. Wiegand, "In Silence or Indifference: Racism and Jim Crow Segregated Public School Libraries" (UP of Mississippi, 2024)

September 23, 2024

In Silence or Indifference

Wayne A. Wiegand
Hosted by Jen Hoyer

Librarians around the country are currently on a battleground, defending their right to purchase and circulate books dealing with issues of race and s…

Caree A. Banton, "More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic" (Cambridge UP, 2019)

September 21, 2024

More Auspicious Shores

Caree A. Banton
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

Caree A. Banton's book More Auspicious Shores: Barbadian Migration to Liberia, Blackness, and the Making of an African Republic (Cambridge UP, 2019) c…

Sarah Lewis, "The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America" (Harvard UP, 2024)

September 21, 2024

The Unseen Truth

Sarah Lewis
Hosted by Reighan Gillam

In a masterpiece of historical detective work, Sarah Lewis exposes one of the most damaging lies in American history. There was a time when Americans …

David Kroening Seitz, "A Different Trek: Radical Geographies of Deep Space Nine" (U Nebraska Press, 2023)

September 20, 2024

A Different Trek

David Kroening Seitz
Hosted by Miranda Melcher

A different kind of Star Trek television series debuted in 1993. Deep Space Nine was set not on a starship but a space station near a postcolonial pla…

Alexis Pauline Gumbs, "Survival Is a Promise: The Eternal Life of Audre Lorde" (FSG, 2024)

September 19, 2024

Survival Is a Promise

Alexis Pauline Gumbs
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

We remember Audre Lorde as an iconic writer, a quotable teacher whose words and face grace T-shirts, nonprofit annual reports, and campus diversity-ce…

Michael L. Walker, "Indefinite: Doing Time in Jail" (Oxford UP, 2022)

September 15, 2024

Indefinite

Michael L. Walker
Hosted by Deidre Tyler

Jails are the principal people-processing machines of the criminal justice system. Mostly they hold persons awaiting trial who cannot afford or have b…

Grant Olwage, "Paul Robeson's Voices" (Oxford UP, 2023)

September 13, 2024

Paul Robeson's Voices

Grant Olwage
Hosted by Nathan Smith

Paul Robeson's Voices (Oxford UP, 2023) is a meditation on Robeson's singing, a study of the artist's life in song. Music historian Grant Olwage exami…

Tracy Fessenden, “Religion Around Billie Holiday” (Pennsylvania State UP, 2018)

September 8, 2024

Religion Around Billie Holiday

Tracy Fessenden

Billie Holiday is one of the most iconic jazz performers of all time. Her voice is certainly unmistakable but for many her religious sensibilities may…

Sara E. Johnson, "Encyclopédie Noire: The Making of Moreau de Saint-Méry's Intellectual World" (Omohundro Institute and UNC Press, 2023)

September 7, 2024

Encyclopédie Noire

Sara E. Johnson
Hosted by Jen Hoyer

If you peer closely into the bookstores, salons, and diplomatic circles of the eighteenth-century Atlantic world, Médéric Louis Élie Moreau de Saint-M…

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration: A Talk by Isabel Wilkerson

September 7, 2024

The Epic Story of America's Great Migration: A Talk by Isabel Wilkerson

Isabel Wilkerson

In 2010, Isabel Wilkerson spoke to the Institute about the fifteen years she spent reporting and writing her book, The Warmth of Other Suns: The Epic …

Magdalena J. Zaborowska, "Me and My House: James Baldwin's Last Decade in France" (Duke UP, 2018)

September 6, 2024

Me and My House

Magdalena J. Zaborowska

The last sixteen years of James Baldwin's life (1971–87) unfolded in a village in the South of France, in a sprawling house nicknamed “Chez Baldwin.” …

How Mechanisms of Psychoanalytic Defense Perpetuate Racism in America

September 3, 2024

How Mechanisms of Psychoanalytic Defense Perpetuate Racism in America

Felecia Powell-Williams
Hosted by Karyne Messina

The third podcast in this series focuses on an article written by Dr. Dionne Powell who participated in the 2014 documentary, “Black Psychoanalysts Sp…

Andy Clarno et al., "Imperial Policing: Weaponized Data in Carceral Chicago" (U Minnesota Press, 2024)

September 3, 2024

Imperial Policing

Andy Clarno, Janaé Bonsu-Love, Enrique Alvear Moreno, Lydia Dana, Michael de Anda Muñiz, Ila Ravichandran, Haley Volpintesta
Hosted by Timi Koyejo

Chicago is a city with extreme concentrations of racialized poverty and inequity, one that relies on an extensive network of repressive agencies to po…

Tadashi Dozono, "Discipline Problems: How Students of Color Trouble Whiteness in Schools" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2024)

August 31, 2024

Discipline Problems

Tadashi Dozono
Hosted by Laura Kelly

Angel, a Black tenth-grader at a New York City public school, self-identifies as a nerd and likes to learn. But she’s troubled that her history classe…

Robin Bernstein, "Freeman’s Challenge: The Murder That Shook America’s Original Prison for Profit" (U Chicago Press, 2024)

August 23, 2024

Freeman's Challenge

Robin Bernstein
Hosted by Ari Barbalat

In the early nineteenth century, as slavery gradually ended in the North, a village in New York State invented a new form of unfreedom: the profit-dri…

Edward Pearson, "The Enslaved and Their Enslavers: Power, Resistance, and Culture in South Carolina, 1670-1825" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023)

August 22, 2024

The Enslaved and Their Enslavers

Edward Pearson

In The Enslaved and Their Enslavers: Power, Resistance, and Culture in South Carolina, 1670-1825 (U Pennsylvania Press, 2023), Edward Pearson offers a…