Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 64

Films of Black Struggle | Conversations in Black Freedom Studies

'Conversations in Black Freedom Studies turns to the visual medium of film to explore two new documentaries on the Black and Latinx liberation struggles. Tayo Giwa and Cynthia Gordy Giwa discuss their film The Sun Rises in the East, which explores the history and legacy of The East, a Pan-African cultural organization whose impact on the culture of Bedford-Stuyvesant, Brooklyn is still being felt. Emma Francis-Snyder discusses the health activism of the Young Lords in the South Bronx and her documentary “Takeover: How We Occupied a Hospital and Changed Public Health Care.” Join historian hosts Jeanne Theoharis and Robyn Spencer for conversation and film clips.'

Kyra Gaunt: How Black Girls Can Reclaim Their Voice in Music

'How does music shape us? Digital ethnomusicologist and TED Fellow Kyra Gaunt studies how Black girls can preserve the integrity of their own voices while listening, dancing and singing to pop songs largely engineered by men, often with lyrics that express anti-Black, patriarchal sentiments. In a quick, incisive talk, she shows how Black girls can disrupt the stereotypes and stigmas buried within this music and chart their own revolution in sound.'

Samuel L. Jackson & Viola Davis | Actors on Actors

'In their Actors on Actors conversation Viola Davis (The First Lady) and Samuel L. Jackson (The Last Days of Ptolemy Grey) recount their experiences coming up in the New York acting world as well as advice for actors on their first projects, and of course what it was like to play Michelle Obama.'

Roy Wood Jr. Explores Gentrification in Brooklyn

'Roy Wood Jr. follows a trail of succulents and Wes Anderson DVDs deep into gentrifying Brooklyn to explore how the increasing white population affects the Black community.'

New Books in African American Studies: 'Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive' – An interview with Mark Anthony Neal

'We are living in an era of unprecedented access to popular culture: contemporary digital infrastructure provides anyone with an internet connection access to a dizzying array of cultural objects past and present, which mingle and connect in fascinating, bizarre and sometimes troubling ways.   

In Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive (NYU Press, 2022), Mark Anthony Neal considers the opportunities and challenges that this vast archive represents for Black American culture, with a particular focus on music and sound. He suggests that despite the profusion of what he terms ‘Black big data’ and the supposed democratisation of access this entails, the contemporary moment is characterised by a profound amnesia and an absence of attention to the dense web of connections that bind the analogue past with the digital present. Black Ephemera seeks to at once draw out and ‘mystify’ these links, by attending to recordings, historical moments and archival projects which have often been neglected in other studies of Black music. Neal’s explorations have a wide historical scope and operate simultaneously in microscopic and conjunctural registers. The book includes analyses of legendary Memphis record label Stax, the place of Aretha Franklin and Mavin Gaye’s overlooked early recordings in/as the Great American Songbook, the use of musical citation to try and combat the erasure of Black women’s experience from the historical archive, and the significance of archival ephemera to Black mourning practices from Pattie LaBelle to Kendrick Lamar.

We cover a lot of music in this episode, and there’s even more in the book! A good place to start might be with two mixes made in response to Black Ephemera, which you can listen to here and here.

Gummo Clare is a PhD researcher in the School of Media and Communications, University of Leeds.'

 

Open Form with Mychal Denzel Smith: Mira Jacob on Mississippi Masala

'In this episode of Open Form, host Mychal  Denzel Smith talks to Mira Jacob (Good Talk) about the 1991 film Mississippi Masala, directed by Mira Nair and starring Denzel Washington, Sarita Choudhury, and Roshan Seth.'

Millennials Are Killing Capitalism | "Forget What The Ruling Class Deems Unacceptable. Revolution Is Illegal": Ed Mead On A Life In Struggle

'In this episode of Millennials Are Killing Capitalism an interview with Ed Mead, a veteran of the revolutionary underground organization the George Jackson Brigade which operated in solidarity with prisoner, anti-racist, and anti-imperialist struggles. A prolific organizer and participant of prisoner struggles both inside and outside of prisons, Ed also co-founded the prisoner organization Men Against Sexism. In this conversation we talk about some lessons along the way of Ed’s political development, from social prisoner to jailhouse lawyer to organizer to revolutionary to political prisoner.'

Race at Work with Porter Braswell | Deloitte's Kwasi Mitchell: Finding Organizational Purpose For Companies and Employees

'In this episode, host Porter Braswell chats with Kwasi Mitchell, Chief Purpose Officer at Deloitte. They discuss why Kwasi’s role is crucial in creating frameworks for organizational purpose, which is the greater mission that helps companies Deloitte serves and its employees find purpose in their daily work. They also talk about creating pathways of success for employees and why it’s a passion for Kwasi.'

Creative Control: Inside the Push to Make Social Media Less Addictive

'Does this sound familiar? You open Instagram or TikTok to kill some time, and the next thing you know, your eyes are dried out and your thumb feels like it’s about to fall off. It’s only then you realize how long you’ve been scrolling. For most of us, spending sometimes hours on social media leaves us a little achy but mainly just feeling guilty for having wasted a chunk of our day. But for some people, getting sucked into social media like that can have a major impact on their mental health. In this episode, I’m looking at where we are now at the intersection of social media and mental health—and I'm talking to a psychiatrist and a technologist who are trying to make these platforms a little less harmful.'

Conversations in Atlantic Theory • Melissa Daniels-Rauterkus on Afro-Realisms and the Romances of Race: Rethinking Blackness in the African American Novel

'A conversation with Melissa Daniels-Rauterkus about her book Afro-Realisms and the Romances of Race: Rethinking Blackness in the African American Novel, published by Louisiana State University Press in 2020.'