New Books in African American Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field.
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1801
Vorris Nunley, “Keepin’ It Hushed: The Barbersh...
Vorris Nunley‘s Keepin it Hushed: The Barbershop and African American Hush Harbor Rhetoric (Wayne State University Press, 2011), uses the black barbershop as a trope to discuss black talk within literary, cultural, and political sites.
72 min
1802
Randy Roberts, “Joe Louis: Hard Times Man” (Yal...
“I’m sure if it wasn’t for Joe Louis,” acknowledged Jackie Robinson, “the color line in baseball would not have been broken for another ten years.” To Muhammad Ali, Joe Louis was an inspiration and an idol.
56 min
1803
Keith Gilyard, “True to the Language Game: Afri...
In the preface to this book, Keith Gilyard describes his career as 30 years of roaming the areas of rhetoric, composition, sociolinguistics, creative writing, applied linguistics, education theory, literary study, history,
55 min
1804
Jerald Walker, “Street Shadows: A Memoir of Rac...
Jerald Walker‘s critical autobiography, Street Shadows: A Memoir of Race, Rebellion, and Redemption (Bantam, 2010), is a sheer pleasure to read. A book-length series of vignettes, reflections that alternate between his present life (he’s currently an E...
61 min
1805
Kitty Kelley, “Oprah: A Biography” (Three River...
When she emerged triumphant in a legal battle with the Texas beef industry, Oprah Winfrey took to the steps of the Amarillo court house and declared: “Free speech rocks!” She was likely a little less enthusiastic about the First Amendment following the...
53 min
1806
Daniel Sharfstein, “The Invisible line: Three A...
Daniel Sharfstein‘s The Invisible Line: Three American Families and the Secret Journey from Black to White (Penguin Press, 2011) is the latest and perhaps best book in the growing genre of neo-passing narratives.
57 min
1807
Lester K. Spence, “Stare in the Darkness: The L...
Hip-hop has, within a short time span, moved from a free-flowing expression of urban youth to a global–and highly marketable–musical genre. Its influence in culture, fashion, film, and music is ubiquitous, and theories about hip-hop’s importance in the...
47 min
1808
Pierre W. Orelus, “The Agony of Masculinity: Ra...
In his new book, The Agony of Masculinity: Race, Gender, and Education in the Age of the “New” Racism and Patriarchy (Peter Lang, 2010), Pierre Orelus analyzes the “heartfelt stories of fifty men of African descent who vary in age, social class,
51 min
1809
Dave Zirin, “The John Carlos Story: The Sports ...
There are beautiful sports photos, and dramatic sports photos. There are sports photos that are funny, and others that are poignant. There are photos that capture athletic brilliance, and tenacity, and passion.
61 min
1810
Ron Christie, “Acting White: The Curious Histor...
In his new bookActing White: The Curious History of a Racial Slur (Thomas Dunne Books, 2010), former White House aide Ron Christie recounts the history of the pejorative term “acting white.” He traces its lineage from the present day through the Black ...
38 min
1811
Scott Brooks, “Black Men Can’t Shoot” (Universi...
With the NBA in the midst of a labor disagreement, players from the world’s premier basketball league are scattering in different directions to maintain their skills (and get paid). This past summer, a number of NBA players returned to their roots,
66 min
1812
Charles McKinney, Jr., “Greater Freedom: The Ev...
When I was an undergraduate, I noticed that there were certain books that seemed to be unavoidable (at least at my liberal arts college). They were assigned in many classes, and they were discussed in many others.
65 min
1813
James Unnever and Shaun L. Gabbidon, “A Theory ...
Is comedian and cultural critic Bill Cosby right–that black youth suffer from a cultural pathology that leads them to commit more crimes than their white counterparts? Is the remedy to the high rate of offending by African American men the “shape up or...
90 min
1814
Miriam Thaggert, “Images of Black Modernism: Ve...
Miriam Thaggert’s study Images of Black Modernism: Verbal and Visual Strategies of the Harlem Renaissance (University of Massachusetts Press, 2010), is an exceptional contribution to the discussion of both modernism and the the period of intense Africa...
54 min
1815
Daniel Black, “Perfect Peace” (St. Martin’s Pre...
If a mother raises her biologically male child as a daughter instead of a son, what would be the effects on the family, the community, the church? Indeed what would be the psychosocial, psychoemotional effects on the daughter once she discovers she’s a...
59 min
1816
Robert Thurston, “Lynching: American Mob Murder...
It takes a brave historian to take on the orthodoxy regarding the rise and fall of lynching in the United States. That orthodoxy holds that lynching in the South was a ‘system of social control’ in which whites used organized terror to oppress blacks.
63 min
1817
Houston A. Baker, “Betrayal: How Black Intellec...
In his new book Betrayal: How Black Intellectuals Have Abandoned the Ideals of the Civil Rights Era (Columbia University Press, 2008), Houston A. Baker makes the argument that many contemporary black public intellectuals,
86 min
1818
Frank Dobson, Jr., “Rendered Invisible: Stories...
Frank Dobson, Jr.‘s Rendered Invisible: Stories of Blacks and Whites, Love and Death (Plain View Press, 2010) is a single-authored collection of fiction. It includes the opening, gripping novella “Rendered Invisible,” which gives the book its title.
60 min
1819
Deborah Whaley, “Disciplining Women: Alpha Kapp...
Deborah Whaley’s new book Disciplining Women: Alpha Kappa Alpha, Black Counterpublics, and the Cultural Politics of Black Sororities (SUNY Press, 2010) may be the first full-length study of a Black Greek-Letter Organization (BGLO) written by a non-BGLO...
53 min
1820
Nikky Finney, “Head Off and Split: Poems” (TriQ...
UPDATE: Nikky Finney’s Head Off and Split has been named a finalist for a National Book Award. Congratulations, Nikky, from the folks at New Books in African American Studies and the New Books Network!) Poet Nikky Finney’s new book Head Off & Split (Tr...
64 min
1821
Harvey Young, “Embodying Black Experience: Stil...
With the election of Barack Obama, the first U.S. president of African descent, many people believed that America had ushered in an era of post-racial harmony. Harvey Young is not one of them. When it comes to the racial experience of black people,
58 min
1822
Eric C. Schneider, “Smack: Heroin and the Ameri...
When I arrived at college in the early 1980s, drugs were cool, music was cool, and drug-music was especially cool. The coolest of the cool drug-music bands was The Velvet Underground. They were from the mean streets of New York City (The Doors were fro...
73 min
1823
Kwasi Konadu, “The Akan Diaspora in the America...
How can those in African, Africana, and African American Studies strengthen their disciplinary ties? What do these connections have to do with Kwasi Konadu‘s recent study The Akan Diaspora in the Americas (Oxford 2010)?
60 min
1824
Elizabeth Abel, “Signs of the Times: The Visual...
I think this is really interesting. Among the thousands of iconic and easily recognizable photographs of segregated water fountains in the American South, you will almost never find one that features a black woman,
55 min
1825
Alan Nadel, “August Wilson: Completing the Twen...
Many scholars consider August Wilson to be the premier American playwright of the 20th Century. Alan Nadel is surely one of their number. In the early 1990s, he focused our attention on Wilson’s plays in the outstanding collection of essays May All You...
50 min