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About Reighan Gillam

Reighan Gillam is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Southern California. Her research examines the ways in which Afro-Brazilian media producers foment anti-racist visual politics through their image creations.

NBN Episodes hosted by Reighan:

Anthropology August 4, 2022

Academic Outsider

Stories of Exclusion and Hope

Victoria Reyes

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Academic Outsider: Stories of Exclusion and Hope (Stanford University Press, 2022), sociologist Victoria Reyes combines her personal experiences with research findings to examine how academia creates conditional citizenship for its …
Anthropology July 13, 2022

Second-Class Daughters

Black Brazilian Women and Informal Adoption as Modern Slavery

Elizabeth Hordge-Freeman

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
A legacy of the transatlantic slave trade, Brazil is home to the largest number of African descendants outside Africa and the greatest number of domestic workers in the world. Drawing …
Anthropology June 10, 2022

Minoritarian Liberalism

A Travesti Life in a Brazilian Favela

Moises Lino e Silva

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Minoritarian Liberalism: A Travesti Life in a Brazilian Favela (University of Chicago Press, 2022) is a mesmerizing ethnography of the largest favela in Rio, where residents articulate their own politics of …
Anthropology May 10, 2022

Suspicion

Vaccines, Hesitancy, and the Affective Politics of Protection in Barbados

Nicole Charles

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In 2014 Barbados introduced a vaccine to prevent certain strains of the human papillomavirus (HPV) and reduce the risk of cervical cancer in young women. Despite the disproportionate burden of …
Anthropology April 13, 2022

Sonorous Worlds

Musical Enchantment in Venezuela

Yana Stainova

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
El Sistema is Venezuela's large scale classical music education program for poor and working class people on the economic, social, and physical margins. In Sonorous Worlds: Musical Enchantment in Venezuela (University …
Latin American Studies April 13, 2022

Selling Black Brazil

Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia

Anadelia Romo

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Selling Black Brazil: Race, Nation, and Visual Culture in Salvador, Bahia (University of Texas Press, 2022), Anadelia Romo argues that visual images were central to the shift from emulating …
Anthropology March 30, 2022

Weighing the Future

Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era

Natali Valdez

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Weighing the Future: Race, Science, and Pregnancy Trials in the Postgenomic Era (University of California Press, 2022), Natali Valdez examines research trials that enroll pregnant people in the United …
Anthropology February 16, 2022

The Presidential Elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, Whiteness, and the Nation

Vânia Penha-Lopes

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
The Presidential Elections of Trump and Bolsonaro, Whiteness, and the Nation (Lexington Books, 2021) is a sociological analysis of the similarities between the elections of Donald Trump and Jair Bolsonaro …
Anthropology November 10, 2021

Being La Dominicana

Race and Identity in the Visual Culture of Santo Domingo

Rachel Afi Quinn

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Dominican women being seen--and seeing themselves--in the media Rachel Afi Quinn investigates how visual media portray Dominican women and how women represent themselves in their own creative endeavors in response …
Anthropology November 1, 2021

Becoming Gods

Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals

Vania Smith-Oka

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Becoming Gods: Medical Training in Mexican Hospitals (Rutgers University Press, 2021), Vania Smith-Oka follows a cohort of interns throughout their year of medical training in hospitals to understand how …
Anthropology October 4, 2021

Black Women, Citizenship, and the Making of Modern Cuba

Takkara K. Brunson

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Black Women, Citizenship, and the Making of Modern Cuba (University of Florida Press, 2021), Dr. Takkara Brunson examines the political strategies used by Afro-Cuban women between 1886 and 195 …
Anthropology July 21, 2021

Finding Afro-Mexico

Race and Nation after the Revolution

Theodore W. Cohen

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Finding Afro-Mexico: Race and Nation after the Revolution (Cambridge University Press, 2020) Theodore Cohen examines the ways in which different protagonists sought to incorporate Blackness into Mexican national identity …
African American Studies June 23, 2021

Afro-Nostalgia

Feeling Good in Contemporary Black Culture

Badia Ahad-Legardy

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Nostalgia has received increasing attention for its role in shaping contemporary social and political life in the United States. Dr. Badia Ahad-Legardy distinguishes Afro-Nostalgia as a framework to think about …
Anthropology June 16, 2021

Kincraft

The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality

Todne Thomas

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Kincraft: The Making of Black Evangelical Sociality (Duke University Press, 2021) by Todne Thomas takes a deep dive into the social and religious lives of two black evangelical churches in …
Anthropology May 12, 2021

Television and the Afghan Culture Wars

Brought to You by Foreigners, Warlords, and Local Activists

Wazhmah Osman

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Portrayed in Western discourse as tribal and traditional, Afghans have in fact intensely debated women's rights, democracy, modernity, and Islam as part of their nation building in the post-9/11 era …
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 …
Anthropology February 22, 2021

Streetwalking

LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic

Ana-Maurine Lara

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Streetwalking: LGBTQ Lives and Protest in the Dominican Republic (Rutgers University Press, 2020), Dr. Ana-Maurine Lara examines the dominant modes of power that seek to suppress LGBTQ lives and …
Anthropology January 25, 2021

Liquor Store Theatre

Maya Stovall

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
For six years, anthropologist and artist Maya Stovall enacted a series of dance performances outside of liquor stores in the McDougall-Hunt neighborhood on Detroit’s east side. Stovall conceptualized these performances …
Anthropology January 5, 2021

Black Lives and Spatial Matters

Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis

Jodi Rios

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Black Lives and Spatial Matters: Policing Blackness and Practicing Freedom in Suburban St. Louis (Cornell University Press, 2020), Dr. Jodi Rios examines relationships between blackness, space, and racism, in …
Anthropology December 29, 2020

Stuck with Tourism

Space, Power, and Labor in Contemporary Yucatan

Matilde Córdoba Azcárate

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
The name Cancún brings to mind tourism, resorts, beaches, sun, and fun. In her book, Stuck With Tourism: Space, Power, and Labor in Contemporary Yucatan (University of California Press, 2020), Matilde …
Anthropology November 18, 2020

Manufacturing Celebrity

Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood

Vanessa Diaz

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
While Hollywood’s images present a veneer of fantasy for some, the work to create such images is far from escapism. In Manufacturing Celebrity: Latino Paparazzi and Women Reporters in Hollywood …
Anthropology November 3, 2020

Contingent Kinship

The Flows and Futures of Adoption in the United States

Kathryn A. Mariner

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Contingent Kinship: The Flows and Futures of Adoption in the United States (University of California Press, 2019) offers an ethnography of adoption processes in the United States through the inner …
Anthropology July 9, 2020

Food In Cuba

The Pursuit of a Decent Meal

Hanna Garth

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
In Food In Cuba: The Pursuit of a Decent Meal (Stanford University Press, 2020), Hanna Garth examines the processes of acquiring food and preparing meals in the midst of food …
Anthropology June 19, 2020

Deadline

Populism and the Press in Venezuela

Robert Samet

Hosted by Reighan Gillam
Caracas, the capital of Venezuela, has been ranked as one of the most violent cities in the world. In Deadline: Populism and the Press in Venezuela (University of Chicago Press …