Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 28

Conversations in Atlantic Theory • \ Sandra Gunning on 'Moving Home: Gender, Place, and Travel Writing in the Early Black Atlantic'

'A conversation with Sandra Gunning, author Moving Home: Gender, Place, and Travel Writing in the Early Black Atlantic (Duke University Press), where she examines 19th century African diasporic travel writing to expand and complicate understandings of the Black Atlantic. Dr. Gunning is a literary scholar working jointly in the Department of American Culture, and the Department of Afroamerican and African Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Currently she’s at work on an alternate Black literary history of the American Civil War.'

Aleah Brown: Supporting Art and Mental Health Through Virtual Reality

'Meet Aleah Brown, a psychology student with a passion for giving underprivileged kids the opportunity to experience the benefits of art and the positive impact that it can have on mental health. With the development of virtual reality software that would immerse students in an interactive virtual art museum, youths are getting hands-on experience and learning how art can be used for expression and learning, along with exploring cultural and societal issues, as well as universal themes and values.' -- The Carlos Watson Show

New Books Network: Psyche A. Williams-Forson – ‘Eating While Black Food Shaming and Race in America'

'In Eating While Black: Food Shaming and Race in America (UNC Press, 2022), Psyche A. Williams-Forson offers her knowledge and experience to illuminate how anti-Black racism operates in the practice and culture of eating. She shows how mass media, nutrition science, economics, and public policy drive entrenched opinions among both Black and non-Black Americans about what is healthful and right to eat. Distorted views of how and what Black people eat are pervasive, bolstering the belief that they must be corrected and regulated. What is at stake is nothing less than whether Americans can learn to embrace nonracist understandings and practices in relation to food. Starkly exposing the rampant shaming and policing around how Black people eat, Williams-Forson contemplates food's role in cultural transmission, belonging, homemaking, and survival. Black people's relationships to food have historically been connected to extreme forms of control and scarcity--as well as to stunning creativity and ingenuity. In advancing dialogue about eating and race, this book urges us to think and talk about food in new ways in order to improve American society on both personal and structural levels.

Stephen Pimpare is director of the Public Service & Nonprofit Leadership program and Faculty Fellow at the Carsey School of Public Policy at the University of New Hampshire.'

Conversations | The Artist and the Gallerists: Ming Smith

'Ming Smith discusses her early collaborations including with the Kamoinge Workshop and the subjects of her first photographs, how she came to work with her present galleries, and their joint journey leading up to major her solo exhibitions at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston and Museum of Modern Art, New York, in 2023.'

Julius Rodriguez (Live) | Glasshaus Presents

'Julius Rodriguez performs acoustic renditions from his Verve Records’ debut, Let Sound Tell All, live at Glasshaus in May 2022.'

Afrovisualism in Conversation with Aishamanne William

'Aishamanne Williams discusses the conceptualization and evolution of Hoodwear Diaries as well as the collective and individual consciousness within the realms of cinema, streetwear, and hip-hop, and remaining grounded in creative community.' 

Uncle Bobbie's Presents: Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. 'Who Hears Here? On Black Music, Pasts and Present' with Farah Jasmine Griffin and Terri Lyne Carrington

Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. author of Who Hears Here?: On Black Music, Pasts and Present is in conversation with fellow scholar Farah Jasmine Griffin and and fellow musician Terri Lyne Carrington. This conversation was presented by Uncle Bobbie's Coffee & Books.

Left of Black S13 · E9 | Queer Aesthetics in Hip Hop and Beyond with Shanté Paradigm Smalls

What does it mean for the genre of hip hop to embrace a queer aesthetic? And how central was New York City to that expression of queerness in music and beyond, such as with figures like hip hop graffiti artist, Martin Wong? Dr. Shanté Paradigm Smalls joins Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal to discuss their new book, Hip Hop Heresies: Queer Aesthetics in New York City, published by New York University Press, part of the Postmillennial Pop Series.

The Takeaway: Fighting Food Insecurity with Michaels Desserts

'Baking phenom Michael Platt joins us to talk about his new book Michaels Desserts: Sweets for a Cause, and how he merges his love for baking with his desire to help combat food insecurity. Michael also shares with us some of the baking tips he’s learned along the way.'

'A new FX series from creator, writer and showrunner Bran...

'A new FX series from creator, writer and showrunner Branden Jacobs-Jenkins adapts Octavia Butler's Kindred, which follows an African American woman from modern times who experiences episodes of time travel to an antebellum plantation.'