Mark Anthony Neal's Blog, page 745

Mikaila Ulmer--10-year old Founder of Bee Sweet Lemonade | Talks at Google

Mikaila Ulmer, who recently earned a $60K Investment on Shark Tank, gives a talk at Google about her company BeeSweet Lemonade .

James Braxton Peterson's "Top 5"

In this episode of Left of Black on The Root, Professor James Braxton Peterson (@Dr James Peterson) names his Top-5 Hip-Hop tracks.  Peterson is director of Africana Studies and Associate professor of English at Lehigh University and the host of The Remix on WHYY in Philadelphia. He is author of    The Hip-Hop Underground and African American Culture: Beneath the Surface .

"I woke up like this": Desire & Respectability in #ShondaLand

Panel addresses issues around the desirability of Black Women, the importance of sexual desire in the lives of Black Women and the ways tropes of respectability might police Black Women’s identity and expressive culture, with:  Natalie Bullock Brown, Saint Augustine's University (Film and Interactive Media Studies); Joan Morgan, New York University (American Studies);  Treva Lindsey, The Ohio State University (Women and Gender Studies); Lisa B. Thompson, University of Texas at Austin (African & African American Diaspora Studies).  Moderator: Anne-Maria Makhulu, Duke University.

ShondaLand the Symposium was held at Duke University on January 30, 2015 and sponsored by the Forum for Scholars and Publics and the Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship.

Rahsaan Roland Kirk: "Blacknuss" (1972) feat Cissy Houston

"Black, Black, Black, Black, Black..."--Rahsaan Roland Kirk

#BlackGirlsCode EP #3: The Girl Who Taught Herself How to Swim

In this episode of Black Girls Code: The Series Heather Faison recalls teaching herself how to swim as a child, which she views as a metaphor for the experiences of Black Women in the Tech Industry.

The Life of Bayard Rustin--Grandfather of #BlackLivesMatter

Civil Right Strategist Bayard Rustin is recalled in this Al Jazeera America interview with his partner Walter Naegle.

RuPaul on Fantasy, Identity, and Diana Ross

On this episode of the NYPL Podcast, RuPaul discusses the masculine and feminine aspects of all human identities and the impact that Diana Ross had on him when he was young.

Left of Black S5:E25: At the Intersections of Jazz, Black Dance & Storytelling

Left of Black S5:E25: At the Intersections of Jazz, Black Dance, and Storytelling
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan) is joined in-studio by Jazz pianist Jason Moran (@morethan88) and dancer and choreographer Ron K. Brown (@evidencedance).  Moran is a MacArthur Award Winner, whose latest recording is the Grammy Award nominated All Rise: A Joyful Elegy for Fats Waller.  Brown is the founder of Ronald K. Brown's Evidence, A Dance Company, which is celebrating its 30th anniversary.Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University and in conjunction with the Center for Arts, Digital Culture & Entrepreneurship (CADCE).*** Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in @ iTunes U*** Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

When "Thingness" Stages the Terms of Their Freedom: J. Cole's "G.O.M.D.

When "Thingness" Stages the Terms of Their Freedom: J. Cole's "G.O.M.D. by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan n Exile) | #MicroTheory
If we are to think of chattel slavery as the attempt to reduce Black humanity to a "Thingness," what happens when that Thingness (pre-citizen in the eyes of the law) stages the terms of its own freedom, using the very thingness (culture and commodities) that it created but can never own, because Thingness can't own thingness, let alone itself?  
Under the law, escape and revolt were the ultimate acts of Black criminality--Thingness stealing itself (not some chickens in a shack). That J. Cole and director Lawrence Lamont stage this Black Criminality--a term of our resistance--only reminds that Hip-Hop has consistently re-staged the terms of our resistance via its sampling practices (Thingness stealing thingness). 
Thinking about August Wilson punching those keys to a Piano Lesson, and Charles Dutton, Rocky Carroll and the late Carl Gordon, on the occasion of Branford Marsalis's invitation, singing "Berta, Berta."

Jay Smooth: How to Recover from Awkward Racial Conversations

in the latest Illipsis , Jay Smooth speaks out publicly about his much-publicized appearance  on MSNBC’S All in with Chris Hayes , blackness, self-identity and how corporations like Starbucks can actually make a difference to the cause of racial justice.