About Adam McNeil

Adam McNeil is a Ph.D. Candidate in History at Rutgers, the State University of New Jersey.

Adam's website

NBN Episodes hosted by Adam:

Joseph Vogel, "James Baldwin and the 1980s: Witnessing the Reagan Era" (U Illinois Press, 2018)

December 28, 2023

James Baldwin and the 1980s

Joseph Vogel
Hosted by Adam McNeil

By the 1980s, critics and the public alike considered James Baldwin irrelevant. Yet Baldwin remained an important, prolific writer until his death in …

Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan J. Johnson, "Phenomenology of Black Spirit" (Edinburgh UP, 2023)

November 22, 2023

Phenomenology of Black Spirit

Biko Mandela Gray and Ryan J. Johnson
Hosted by Adam McNeil

In Phenomenology of Black Spirit (Edinburgh UP, 2023), Ryan Johnson and Biko Mandela Gray study the relationship between Hegel's Phenomenology of Spir…

Robert Greene and Tyler D. Parry, "Invisible No More: The African American Experience at the University of South Carolina" (U South Carolina Press, 2021)

October 13, 2023

Invisible No More

Robert Greene and Tyler D. Parry
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Since its founding in 1801, African Americans have played an integral, if too often overlooked, role in the history of the University of South Carolin…

Zebulon Vance Miletsky, "Before Busing: A History of Boston's Long Black Freedom Struggle" (UNC Press, 2022)

September 22, 2023

Before Busing

Zebulon Vance Miletsky
Hosted by Adam McNeil
Listen:

In many histories of Boston, African Americans have remained almost invisible. Partly as a result, when the 1972 crisis over school desegregation and …

Kidada E. Williams, "I Saw Death Coming: A History of Terror and Survival in the War Against Reconstruction" (Bloomsbury, 2023)

September 3, 2023

I Saw Death Coming

Kidada E. Williams
Hosted by Adam McNeil

The story of Reconstruction is often told from the perspective of the politicians, generals, and journalists whose accounts claim an outsized place in…

Becoming Justice Thomas

August 20, 2023

Becoming Justice Thomas

Joel Anderson
Hosted by Adam McNeil

On today’s podcast, we are changing things up a bit. Instead of interviewing the author of a recent book, I am interviewing another podcaster about th…

J. T. Roane, "Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place" (NYU Press, 2023)

June 4, 2023

Dark Agoras

J.T. Roane
Hosted by Adam McNeil
Listen:

In Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place (NYU Press, 2023), author J. T. Roane shows how working-class Black communities …

Nicholas Guyatt, "The Hated Cage: An American Tragedy in Britain's Most Terrifying Prison" (Basic Books, 2022)

April 18, 2023

The Hated Cage

Nicholas Guyatt
Hosted by Adam McNeil

After the War of 1812, more than five thousand American sailors were marooned in Dartmoor Prison on a barren English plain; the conflict was over but …

Mari N. Crabtree, "My Soul Is a Witness: The Traumatic Afterlife of Lynching" (Yale UP, 2023)

April 8, 2023

My Soul Is a Witness

Mari N. Crabtree
Hosted by Adam McNeil

In My Soul Is a Witness: The Traumatic Afterlife of Lynching (Yale UP, 2023), Mari N. Crabtree traces the long afterlife of lynching in the South thro…

Michael Lawrence Dickinson, "Almost Dead: Slavery and Social Rebirth in the Black Urban Atlantic, 1680-1807" (U Georgia Press, 2022)

February 2, 2023

Almost Dead

Michael Lawrence Dickinson
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Beginning in the late seventeenth century and concluding with the abolition of the Atlantic slave trade, Almost Dead: Slavery and Social Rebirth in th…

J. Brent Morris, "Dismal Freedom: A History of the Maroons of the Great Dismal Swamp" (UNC Press, 2022)

January 31, 2023

Dismal Freedom

J. Brent Morris
Hosted by Adam McNeil

The massive and foreboding Great Dismal Swamp sprawls over 2,000 square miles and spills over parts of Virginia and North Carolina. From the early sev…

Tara T. Green, "Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson" (Bloomsbury, 2022)

November 25, 2022

Love, Activism, and the Respectable Life of Alice Dunbar-Nelson

Tara T. Green
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Born in New Orleans in 1875 to a mother who was formerly enslaved and a father of questionable identity, Alice Dunbar-Nelson was a pioneering activist…

Anna Arabindan-Kesson, "Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton, and Commerce in the Atlantic World" (Duke UP, 2021)

November 23, 2022

Black Bodies, White Gold

Anna Arabindan-Kesson
Hosted by Adam McNeil

In Black Bodies, White Gold: Art, Cotton, and Commerce in the Atlantic World (Duke UP, 2021), Anna Arabindan-Kesson uses cotton, a commodity central t…

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

September 9, 2022

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

Marcus Nevius
Hosted by Adam McNeil

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! …

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

July 29, 2022

Black Majority

Peter H. Wood
Hosted by Adam McNeil

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 s…

Bianca C. Williams et al., "Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education" (SUNY Press, 2021)

June 23, 2022

Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions

Bianca C. Williams, Dian D. Squire, and Frank A. Tuitt
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Plantation Politics and Campus Rebellions: Power, Diversity, and the Emancipatory Struggle in Higher Education (SUNY Press, 2021) provides a multidisc…

E. James West, "Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America" (U Illinois Press, 2020)

March 17, 2022

Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr

E. James West
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Ebony Magazine and Lerone Bennett Jr.: Popular Black History in Postwar America (University of Illinois Press, 2020) reveals the previously hidden imp…

Joshua Myers, "Cedric Robinson: The Time of the Black Radical Tradition" (Polity, 2021)

March 9, 2022

Cedric Robinson

Joshua Myers
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Cedric Robinson – political theorist, historian and activist – was one of the greatest black radical thinkers of the twentieth century, whose work res…

Eric Herschthal, "The Science of Abolition: How Slaveholders Became the Enemies of Progress" (Yale UP, 2021)

February 11, 2022

The Science of Abolition

Eric Herschthal
Hosted by Adam McNeil

In the context of slavery, science is usually associated with slaveholders' scientific justifications of racism. But abolitionists were equally adept …

Tyler D. Parry, "Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual" (UNC Press, 2020)

January 28, 2022

Jumping the Broom

Tyler D. Parry
Hosted by Adam McNeil

In Jumping the Broom: The Surprising Multicultural Origins of a Black Wedding Ritual (UNC Press, 2020), Tyler D. Parry untangles the convoluted histor…

Peter Cole, "Ben Fletcher: The Life and Times of a Black Wobbly" (PM Press, 2021)

November 30, 2021

Ben Fletcher

Peter Cole
Hosted by Adam McNeil

In the early twentieth century, when many US unions disgracefully excluded black and Asian workers, the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) warmly w…

Crystal Webster, "Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood: African American Children in the Antebellum North" (UNC Press, 2021)

November 30, 2021

Beyond the Boundaries of Childhood

Crystal Webster
Hosted by Adam McNeil

For all that is known about the depth and breadth of African American history, we still understand surprisingly little about the lives of African Amer…

Alaina E. Roberts, "I've Been Here All the While: Black Freedom on Native Land" (U Pennsylvania Press, 2021)

November 9, 2021

I've Been Here All the While

Alaina E. Roberts
Hosted by Adam McNeil

Perhaps no other symbol has more resonance in African American history than that of 40 acres and a mule--the lost promise of Black reparations for sla…

Imani Perry on a Life in African American Studies

October 26, 2021

Imani Perry on a Life in African American Studies

Imani Perry
Hosted by Adam McNeil

On today’s podcast, I am chopping it up with my dear friend and play cousin Dr. Imani Perry, the Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies a…