Left of Black S12 · E14 | Black Utopias and the Mystical with Jayna Brown

Can the utopian model that is a common theme in science and speculative fiction also be a new way for Black people to rethink how to exist in a world where their humanity is always called into question? What do such historic figures like Sojourner Truth reveal to us through their own mystical practices? Dr. Jayna J. Brown, Professor of Humanities & Media Studies at the Pratt Institute, dissects other ways of being found in the life and legacies of Rebecca Cox Jackson, musicians Alice Coltrane and Sun Ra, and Sojourner Truth through her new book, Black Utopias: Speculative Life and the Music of Other Worlds published by Duke University Press.