Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 1007

Remembering Manning Marable--A Year Later (video)

Marable Memorial Film from Mike Tyner on Vimeo.


Manning Marable Memorial Film (dir. Mike Tyner)


On April 1 2011, we lost Dr. Manning Marable shortly before the publication of his book Malcolm X: A Life of Reinvention. This film was shown at his memorial ceremony. On the anniversary of Dr. Marable's untimely passing, the family wanted to share it with the public. [image error]

The Young & the Digital at Black Thought 2.0

The Young and the Digital by Evelyn Howell | The Triangle Tribune
DURHAM - Advancements in new technology have allowed today's young users to connect with their friends and the outside world fast. Twitter, texting, YouTube and Facebook are all popular new media networking tools.
"Mobile is considered the gateway. It's more pronounced in their lives and is considered Grand Central Station of their lives," said S. Craig Watkins, a social scientist whose research is based on the digital lives of young people and how mobile device is used to communicate with their peers.
The author of "The Young & the Digital: What the Migration to Social Network Sites, Games and Anytime, Anywhere Media Means for our Future" was the keynote speaker last week at a two-day Duke conference titled "Black Thought 2.0: New Media and the Future of Black Studies" at the John Hope Franklin Center.
Watkins, an associate professor of radio, television and film at the University of Texas, has studied youth and media culture for 12 years and digital media for eight years. He is currently the principal investigator for a three-year study called "Connected Learning Research Network," funded by the MacArthur Foundation on Youth, Digital Media and Learning.
Watkins said black studies in terms of literacy is teaching how using "social mobile media as educational devices is not just games and videos."
"The role of the black intellectual experience is extraordinary, which includes tenure, battling for resources and gaining respect in the 'Ivory Tower,' " he said.
Watkins said the idea of closing the inequality gap used to be to get lower income kids access to computers. Now that they have this access through schools and libraries, there is a challenge ahead known as the "digital divide," where lower income kids are still disadvantaged.
"It's beyond digital access; it's about literacy skills and how to use technology," he said. "Schools can be technology rich but academic poor. It's about creating curriculums to allow them to master technology."
When looking at issues of social equality, Watkins said "Digital equality equals digital literacy." He wants students to think about the role of technology in the world today and to think critically about the stories they create.
"They should think of themselves as having a stake in their community where they live and to create a process that will allow them to have a stake in their community," he said. "Social media is a galvanizing force to stimulate folks to participate in public life."
Mark Anthony Neal, Duke African and African American Studies professor, said it's no longer about access but participation.
"I hope we can have a follow-up event down the road to further address these issues," said Neal, organizer of the conference which attracted more than 60 participants and was video streamed to 1,000 viewers.
"For me, this was about taking stock about the revolution of what's happened. I remember the floppy disc and email," said Cynthia R. Greenlee-Donnell, a doctoral candidate in Duke's department of history. "As a professor in training, because of the power of Twitter, I have to reconnect with it because my students use it all the time."

Second City Presents | What If Famous People Weren't Famous: PRINCE

The Second City Network is a home for comedy videos created by the writers and performers of The Second City and beyond.

Discussing the Bull City Soul Revival on Black Issues Forum

Watch Bull City Soul Revival on PBS. See more from Black Issues Forum.
Black Issues Forum | UNC-TVEpisode: Bull City Soul RevivalLearn about the Bull City Music Revival, a collaborative effort to recollect, preserve, and celebrate that music and its history, Guests include recording artists Jaisun McMillian--formerly of Martha and the Vandellas and the Platters--and Johnny White, plus Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, and Dr. Joshua Clark Davis of Duke University. Host, Deborah Holt Noel.

The Late Elizabeth Catlett on Earning Her MFA at the University of Iowa

National Visionary Leadership Project: Acclaimed for her abstract sculptures, prints, and paintings, Elizabeth Catlett was one of the most prominent artists of the twentieth century. Her expansive collection of work reflects her commitment to the preservation of African American cultural traditions and the depiction of the lives of everyday, working-class people. The celebration of strong black women and mothers is also a consistent theme throughout her art, evident in her sculptures such as "Homage to My Young Black Sisters" (1968) and various mother-child pairings.

Left of Black S2:E27 | 'Black Radio,' Philly Soul & Hip-Hop with Robert Glasper Experiment Bassist Derrick Hodge

Left of Black S2:E27 | April 9, 2012
'Black Radio,' Philly Soul & Hip-Hop with Robert Glasper Experiment Bassist Derrick Hodge
Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in person byPhiladelphia's own Derrick Hodge,bassist for the Robert GlasperExperiment and longtime musical director for R&B artist Maxwell at theJohn Hope Franklin Center for International and Interdisciplinary Studies. Hodge discusses working as a musician in high school with few resources, andrecounts his experiences working with various artists' including Lupe Fiasco,Bilal, J-Dilla, Common, and Kanye West.  Hodge's talks about his biggestinfluences as a musician, including that of the Philadelphia sound, and thesignificance of the Experiment's new recording Black Radio.  Hodge may be most well known, among Hip-hopfans, for the bass solo that open Common's "Be."
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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced incollaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.
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Episodes of Left of Blackare also available for free download in HD @ iTunes U

Return of the Birthers? James Braxton Peterson on Race in the 2012 Presidential Election

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

James Braxton Peterson of Lehigh University Discusses the Role of Race in 2012 Presidential on The Ed Show (MSNBC)

Video: "The Economy Sux"--by T.E.S. featuring Corey Glover

"The Economy Sux" Feat. Corey Glover

Available on iTunes: http://bit.ly/wFWMuU

Produced By Andre Betts

RockYoMama and Skutch Entertainment 2012

"Made You Die"--Behind the Scenes w/ Yasiin Bey (Mos Def) & Dead Prez

'Made You Die' | Trayvon Martin Tribute Behind the Scenes
Featuring: Yasiin Bey (Mos Def);  Dead Prez;  MikeFlo

#BT2Duke In the Mix: Responses to Black Thought 2.0 at Duke

Jasiri X, Moya Bailey & Alexis Pauline Gumbs (photo by Brett Chambers)

#BT2Duke In the Mix: Responses to BlackThought 2.0 at Duke
Noteson Black Thought 2.0 byFaithe Day | HASTAC
Throughthe beauty of the Internet I was able to spend Friday and Saturday watching andtaking part in discussion via twitter on the Black Thought 2.0 Conferenceat Duke University that was broadcast via UStream. Here are my notes, whichmostly reflect the questions that were addressed and some of the responses,from my interaction with the conference as well as some additional links that Ifound interesting.
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Broadcasting& Tweeting a Black Studies Conference byHoward Rambsy II | www.siueblackstudies.com
Whatwas especially notable about the Black Thought 2.0 gathering was its liveustream broadcast and  live-tweets with the hashtag #BT2Duke. The in-roomaudience for the panels included 60 or so people, but the online viewersincreased the audience to nearly 1,000 during the course of the day.
The twitter activity taking place was dynamic and offered a way of reading whatobservers were taking away from the panelists' comments and how folks on twitterwere receiving what was tweeted.  Someone on the panel would make a point;someone in the room or watching on ustream would quote or paraphrase thequotation and post it on twitter; then others would re-tweet or comment. It wasan engaging interplay, social media in action. 
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Double-Consciousnessand the Digital Individual: Reflections on Black Thought 2.0 by FaitheDay | HASTAC
Areoccurring theme during the Black Thought 2.0 conference, which is also reflectedin Black Studies, was the idea of tensions between personas or a sense ofdouble-consciousness. The main panel that discussed this tension was the secondPanel titled"Onthe Grid: Teaching and Researching in the Digital" after the moderatorbrought up the question of having a public and private life in the digitalworld and in the real world. Howard Rambsy II discussed it in terms of adouble-consciousness between the analog self and the digital self, whileAllison Clark attributed this idea to "code-switching". While only some of thepanelists expressed a separation between their public and private selves interms of their use of social media sites, I could not help but think of theidea of Black Twitter and the long history of doubleness when thinking aboutand/or enacting "acceptable" modes of cultural blackness and modes that areseen as "unacceptable".
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Towarda History of Black Digital Intellectuals byHoward Rambsy II | www.siueblackstudies.com
If I wasn't so behind on my literary history projectsand my grading of student papers, Iwould be inclined to take up the task of writing a history of black digital oronline intellectuals. And maybe, the term "intellectuals" doesn'tfully capture what I have in mind. Really, it would be more about folks whowere collaborating on technology projects and participating in various online conversations.
Whatever the case, I received a renewed spark to my interest in these AfricanAmerican (digital) histories at the Black Thought 2.0 conference at DukeUniversity as Lynne d. Johnson was discussing her participation in NewYork-based online discussion groups during the early 1990s. Now, I had firstencountered "lynne d. johnson" in the late 1990s when I became aparticipant on Alondra Nelson's afrofuturism (AF) list serve. Mark Anthony Nealwas there. Nalo Hopkinson was there, and many, many more were on the listserve.
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Isthe Future of Activism Online? by Jasiri X | Black YouthProject
This weekend at had thepleasure of participating in a revolutionary conference called "BlackThought 2.0: New Media and the Future of Black Studies" at Duke University.Convened and hosted by Dr. Mark Anthony Neal, Professor of Black Popular Culture in the Department of African andAfrican-American Studies at Duke University and host of the weekly webcast, "Leftof Black", Black Thought 2.0 brought together some the best minds in academiawith initiative entrepreneurs and activist finding success online.
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TheNew Public Intellectual: Utilizing Social Media at Black Thought 2.0 by FaitheDay | HASTAC
Critiquesof the "Ivory Tower" of academia have been levied for many years againstacademic institutions but in the final panel of Black Thought 2.0 there was agreater discussion of what it means to be a public intellectual in the 21stcentury and how social media is changing that definition. The fact that therehas been some recentdiscussion on HASTAC about the use of the term "public intellectual" showsthat social media is greatly changing the way that we interpret the idea ofbeing "public" and the role or designation of the intellectual. MarK AnthonyNeal (@NewBlackMan) was the moderator for this panel and he had previouslypublished a video that asked the question "Whatif W.E.B. Du Bois had a Twitter"coming to the conclusion that Du Bois would have been a prolific tweeter. Thisreferences the history of Black public intellectuals that were invested inbeing accessible to and mobilizing their community. As Neal noted during thepanel Martin Luther King Jr. would frequent pool halls in order to talk topeople outside of his church community about social issues.
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