Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 19

On Reckonings, Reimagining, and The Third Reconstruction - Peniel Joseph & Ibram X. Kendi | The Emancipator

'Acclaimed historians Ibram X. Kendi and Peniel Joseph joined to discuss Joseph’s latest work, The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century.'

The Black Studies Podcast: Black Music and the Historian's Craft

'In this episode of The Black Studies Podcast, Dr. Dhanveer Singh Brar and Dr. Francesca D'Amico-Cuthbert join to discuss Black music and the historian's craft. In a fascinating conversation that discusses music and cultural production across time and space, we reflect on our careful listening and study of Black musicians and cultural industries. We pay special attention to creative artists such as Gil Scott-Heron, Janet Jackson, Mos Def, Chief Xian aTunde Adjuah, Luther Vandross, and how they have shared precious resources to help their audiences step audaciously into the past and imagine more promising and fantastic futures. Dhanveer Singh Brar is a writer, researcher, and teacher focussing on questions of race, culture, aesthetics, politics and theory from the mid-twentieth century to the present. Francesca D’Amico-Cuthbert is a Hip Hop Historian, researcher, consultant and creative. Her research explores the history of Hip Hop culture and Rap music, the creative industries, and histories of anti-Blackness in the music marketplace. Her forthcoming book project, a history of American Hip Hop knowledge production in the era of mass incarceration, outlines how Black rappers constructed complex ethnographies of urban spaces, transformed dispositions of power, and unmasked the modes and mechanisms of a persistent and haunting coloniality in the afterlives of American slavery.'

New Books Network: Quito Swan – ‘Pasifika Black: Oceania, Anti-colonialism, and the African World'

'Oceania is a vast sea of islands, large scale political struggles and immensely significant historical phenomena. Pasifika Black: Oceania, Anti-Colonialism, and the African World (NYU Press, 2022) is a compelling history of understudied anti-colonial movements in this region, exploring how indigenous Oceanic activists intentionally forged international connections with the African world in their fights for liberation. Drawing from research conducted across Fiji, Australia, Vanuatu, Papua New Guinea, Britain, and the United States, Quito Swan shows how liberation struggles in Oceania actively engaged Black internationalism in their diverse battles against colonial rule. Pasifika Black features as its protagonists Oceania's many playwrights, organizers, religious leaders, scholars, Black Power advocates, musicians, environmental justice activists, feminists, and revolutionaries who carried the banners of Black liberation across the globe.'

Conversations in Atlantic Theory • Habiba Ibrahim on Black Age: Oceanic Lifespans and the Time of Black Life

'A conversation with Habiba Ibrahim, who teaches in the Department of English at the University of Washington in Seattle, about her new book Black Age: Oceanic Lifespans and the Time of Black Life, published by New York University Press in 2021. In this episode of  Conversations in Atlantic Theory a discussion of the complexity of time and the body in Black life and literary culture, the oceanic and memory, humanism and what comes next, and the meaning of Black childhood in an antiblack world and its history. The cover art discussed in the podcast is “Little Swimmer” (2016), a painting by Calida Garcia Rowles.'

Afrofuturism, from Seneca Village to Wakanda | Notes from America with Kai Wright

'Black Panther's Production Designer, Hannah Beachler, talks about curating an Afrofuturist period room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art – a first of its kind – and about her inspiration when imagining Black worlds that collapse the past, present, and future.'

New World Coming: Working-class Pan-Africanism with Mikaela Nhondo Erskog

'James Counts Early is joined today by Mikaela Nhondo Erskog, popular educator, editor and researcher of the Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research, and coordinating member of the International Peoples’ Assembly. In this conversation, they discuss the historical legacy of African national liberation and socialist projects, how that legacy is relevant to struggles today, and how popular movements are rebuilding the capacity to fight for alternatives to neoliberal capitalism. Mikaela also discusses her work building up the African regional articulation of the International Peoples’ Assembly and clears up myths about China’s development partnerships with African countries.'

Letitia Wright & John Boyega | Actors on Actors | Variety

'In their Actors on Actors conversation Letitia Wright (Black Panther: Wakanda Forever) and John Boyega (The Woman King) cover their respective experiences as part of Disney's huge franchises Black Panther: Wakanda Forever and Star Wars. The old acting school classmates recount their experiences finding success in Hollywood and why they wanted to work with Steve McQueen.'

Artist Talk | Sir Isaac Julien: Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass | Virginia Museum of Fine Arts

'Sir Isaac Julien shared insights on his film installation, Lessons of the Hour—Frederick Douglass, which contemplates the life and times of Frederick Douglass.'

What the Māori in New Zealand Can Teach Us About Reparations

'The Māori fight for justice leads the way on how to reckon with a dark past.'

Branden Jacobs-Jenkins on the Cycles of Interest Surrounding Black Art | Washington Post Live

"In 2016 a lot of folks felt like they were backsliding through time. And suddenly here was this book and this television show that was giving people an opportunity to meditate on what was happening in the world around them.” - Branden Jacobs-Jenkins