AAS 21 Podcast

  Housing justice isn't just about where we live—it's about power, equity, and the future of our communities. In this episode, Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, Hughes-Rogers Professor of African American Studies at Princeton University, and Majora Carter, real estate developer, urban revitalization strategist, and MacArthur Fellow, examine the systemic racism baked into housing policies and the economic forces that shape our neighborhoods. Taylor underscores the need for grassroots activism, while Carter shares her work on reversing the brain drain in low-status communities like the South Bronx. Together, they push for a fundamental shift in how we think about housing, development, and opportunity.

In this episode of the African American Studies podcast, host Justice Wilhoit engages in a critical conversation with Professors Eddie S. Glaude, Jr. and Marcus Lee about the current political landscape, particularly focusing on the implications of the 2020 election, the presidency of Joe Biden, and the role of Kamala Harris. The discussion also delves into intra-party dynamics within the Democratic Party, the strategies of the Republican Party, and the impact of student activism in relation to the ongoing genocide in Palestine. The speakers emphasize the need for innovative approaches to activism and the significance of community support in navigating political challenges.   ~~  CHAPTERS 00:00 Introduction to the Podcast and Its Themes 03:01 The Political Landscape and the 2020 Election 06:05 Biden's Presidency and Its Implications 09:00 Kamala Harris: Identity and Political Strategy 11:50 Intra-Party Dynamics and the Democratic Party 14:47 Republican Party Strategies and Voter Dynamics 18:12 The Israeli-Palestinian Conflict and Student Activism 28:17 Media's Role in Shaping Discourse 32:40 Reflections on Privilege and Activism 37:03 The Complexity of Political Engagement 40:58 Symbolism and Representation in Politics 46:18 The Power and Influence of Media 53:06 Community and Hope in Political Times  

How do we look at, and respond to, work by Black contemporary artists? In this episode, we sat down with Tina Campt, Visiting Professor in Art & Archaeology and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton. We trace the arc of Prof. Campt's career, from her earlier research on family photography in the African diaspora and how one can “listen to images,” all the way to her current writing and recent trip to this year's Venice Biennale. Along the way, we discuss concepts that elucidate the aesthetic, political, and experiential dynamics of work by artists like Jennifer Packer, Cameron Rowland, Stan Douglas, and Simone Leigh. Deep Dive: How to “listen” to a photograph Tina M. Campt, Listening to Images (Duke University Press, 2017). Tina M. Campt, A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (MIT Press, 2021). The Breakdown - Guest Info (Photo credit: barnard.edu) Tina M. Campt (https://artandarchaeology.princeton.edu/people/tina-m-campt)  Professor Campt taught a multidisciplinary seminar called “Radical Composition” as a Visiting Professor at Princeton for the Spring 2022 semester. She is the Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, and heads the Black Visualities Initiative at Brown's Cogut Institute for Humanities. In addition to the five books she has authored and edited, such as Listening to Images and A Black Gaze, Professor Campt is the lead convener of the Practicing Refusal Collective and the Sojourner Project.  See, Hear, Do “Radical Composition” course materials: Saidiya Hartman, "Venus in Two Acts." Small Axe 12, no. 2 (2008): 1-14.  Flying Lotus, “Until the Quiet Comes,” dir. Kahlil Joseph (2012).  Carrie Mae Weems, “People of a Darker Hue” (2016). Jay-Z, “4:44,” dir.  Arthur Jafa (2017).  Roy DeCarava and Langston Hughes, The Sweet Flypaper of Life (First Print Press, 2018). Practicing Refusal Collective, The Sojourner Project (ongoing). Whitney Museum of American Art, “Ask a Curator: Jennifer Packer: The Eye Is Not Satisfied With Seeing” (2022). Taylor DaFoe, “How Curators David Breslin and Adrienne Edwards Tackled the 2022 Whitney Biennial to Show ‘What America Really Looks Like',” artnet news (March 29, 2022). Simone Leigh, Sovereignty, Official U.S. Presentation, 59th International Art Exhibition, La Biennale di Venezia, April 23–November 27, 2022. National Gallery of Art, Afro-Atlantic Histories, April 10–July 17, 2022. Tina M. Campt, fourth lecture in the series Image Complex: Art, Visuality & Power, University of Sydney (online lecture, October 19th, 2022, register here).

Princeton AAS Podcast S2 E07 A Painter's Eye In this episode, we sit down with the legendary historian and artist Nell Painter to discuss her career and its connections to Black Studies. From reckoning with historical figures as individuals, to her life and work at Princeton, to her own works-in-progress, this podcast has something for everyone. Our hosts dive deep into Painter's legacy and the lessons she has for our present moment. The Culture of __ “This new and 'old' artist offers a self-portrait in starting over,” PBS NewsHour, July 23, 2018 “Nell Painter: Old In Art School,” GBH Forum Network, July 31, 2018 The Breakdown - Guest Info Nell Irvin Painter (nellpainter.com)  Nell Irvin Painter is Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita at Princeton University. She was Director of Princeton's Program in African-American Studies from 1997 to 2000. In addition to her doctorate in history from Harvard University, she has received honorary doctorates from Wesleyan, Dartmouth, SUNY-New Paltz, and Yale. Prof. Painter has published numerous books, articles, reviews, and other essays, including The History of White People. She has served on numerous editorial boards and as an officer of many different professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the American Antiquarian Society, the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, and the Association of Black Women Historians. Nell Painter (the painter formerly known as the historian Nell Irvin Painter) lives and works in Newark, New Jersey. Her work carries discursive as well as visual meaning, and is made in a manual and digital process. Using found images and digital manipulation, she reconfigures the past and self-revision through self-portraits. After a life of historical truth and political engagement with American society, her artwork represents freedom, including the freedom to be totally self-centered. See, Hear, Do “The Extraordinary Women of AAS Featuring Nell Painter,” Princeton University Department of African American Studies, March 28, 2022 Nell Irvin Painter, Southern History Across the Color Line (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2021 [2002]) Nell Painter, “American Whiteness Since Trump,” James Fuentes Gallery, 2020 “Nell Painter and Black Power in Print,” Museum of Fine Arts Boston, November 15, 2021 “Nell Irvin Painter to Deliver the Charles Homer Haskins Prize Lecture,” American Council of Learned Societies Annual Meeting, Friday, April 29, 2022 @ 6:00 PM EST (registration in link)

On this podcast, we have addressed different dimensions of scientific racism from COVID-19 disparity data to the uses of human remains in anthropology. The Culture of... Jacque Smith and Cassie Spodak, “Black or 'Other'? Doctors may be relying on race to make decisions about your health,” CNN, June 7, 2021 Ezra Turner, “MOVE Bombing Remains Scandal Shows Enduring Racism in Anthropology,” Teen Vogue, July 16, 2021 Black AF in STEM The Breakdown - Guest Info (Photo credit: Becca Skinner / Day's Edge Productions) Shane Campbell-Staton (https://www.campbellstaton.com/)    Shane Campbell-Staton is an Assistant Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. He comes to us from UCLA where he was jointly appointed in the Institute for Society and Genetics. His research group focuses on evolution in the Anthropocene, studying animal performance, gene expression and genomics to understand the lasting biological impacts of our human footprint. In addition to his scientific work, Shane hosts the popular podcast “The Biology of Superheroes,” with Arien Darby.   (Photo credit: Princeton University) Ayah Nuriddin (https://sf.princeton.edu/people/ayah-nuriddin)    Ayah Nuriddin is a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in Princeton's Society of Fellows, as well as a lecturer in the Council of Humanities and African American Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University. Ayah's work shows how African Americans have navigated questions of racial science, eugenics, and hereditarianism in relation to struggles for racial justice since the nineteenth century. She is also interested in how race and scientific racism shape discourses and activism around health inequality. Ayah is working on a book manuscript, “Seed and Soil: Black Eugenic Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” and teaches courses at Princeton like “Beyond Tuskegee: Race and Human Subjects Research in US History.” See, Hear, Do Shane Cambpell-Staton and Arien Darby, The Biology of Superheroes Podcast Ayah Nuriddin, “African Americans and Eugenics,” C-SPAN American History TV, January 5, 2018 Terence Keel, Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science (Stanford University Press, 2018) PBS: American Experience, The Eugenics Crusade, October 16, 2018 Alexander Glustrom, Mossville: When Great Trees Fall (Fire River Films, 2020)

Two events in 1921—more than a thousand miles apart—had a profound impact on African American history: the production of the all-Black musical Shuffle Along and the Tulsa race massacre. A century on, an online workshop held at Princeton, Reactivating Memory, sought to explore the relationship between these seemingly disparate events and consider their legacy in Black life today. Our host Mélena Laudig sat down with Michael J. Love, A.J. Mohammed, and Dr. Catherine M. Young, all contributors to the team that organized this fascinating workshop. Tune in to learn more about how they balance performance, scholarship, and activism, and to dig into the history of Shuffle Along and the legacy of Black theatrical practice. The Culture of... Brian D. Valencia, “Musical of the Month: Shuffle Along,” NYPL Blog, February 10, 2012 “Show Clips: SHUFFLE ALONG, Starring Audra McDonald,” Broadwaycom, May 10, 2016

Princeton AAS Podcast S2 E04 University Reckonings Over the past decade, historians have probed the relationship between higher education and slavery through innovative public-facing projects that raise important questions. What role have academic institutions played in perpetuating racial inequality? How are scholars and students today working to hold universities accountable for past and present injustices? What role should public engagement play in shaping the future of scholarship and the mission of the university? As campuses buzz back to life, our hosts Ebun Ajayi and Mélena Laudig discuss the legacy of universities and slavery with up-and-coming scholars in Black Studies: R. Isabela Morales, Charlesa Redmond, and Ezelle Sanford, III. The Culture of... President Eisgruber's message to community on removal of Woodrow Wilson name from public policy school and Wilson College, June 27, 2020 Editorial Board, “After five years of student activism, it's time for the U. to stop dragging its feet,” The Daily Princetonian, July 2, 2020 Maya Kassutto, “Remains of children killed in MOVE bombing sat in a box at Penn Museum for decades,” BillyPenn, April 21, 2021 “MOVE Bombing at 30,” Democracy Now, May 13, 2015 Benjamin Ball, “Students hold protest in solidarity with MOVE,” May 2, 2021 Association of Black Anthropologists, “Collective Statement Concerning the Possession and Unethical Use of Remains,” April 28, 2021   The Breakdown - Guest Info Isabela Morales, Ph.D. (http://www.risabelamorales.com/)  Dr. R. Isabela Morales received her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 2019 and is Editor and Project Manager of the Princeton & Slavery Project. Her first book, Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2022. After two years working for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, she will join the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum while working on her second book project. Ezelle Sanford III, Ph.D. (http://www.ezellesanford.com/) Dr. Ezelle Sanford III is an Assistant Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University and received his PhD in history of science from Princeton in 2019. A scholar of African American, medical, and urban history, Dr. Sanford's book project, Segregated Medicine: How Racial Politics Shaped American Healthcare, explores the history of racial inequality in healthcare through the lens of St. Louis's Homer G. Phillips Hospital, America's largest segregated hospital in the mid-twentieth century. Before coming to his current position, Dr. Sanford was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Project Manager for the Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery Project. Charlesa Redmond (https://scholars.duke.edu/person/charlesa.redmond) Charlesa Redmond is a Ph.D. student in History at Duke University. A 2017 graduate of Princeton University, her senior thesis work was based in materials made accessible through the Princeton & Slavery Project. Her Ph.D. research aims to explore how colleges and universities tried to answer “the slavery question,” and how such answers manifested themselves into tangible actions—frustrating the slave trade at times while furthering it at others. See, Hear, Do The Princeton & Slavery Project Penn & Slavery Project and Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery Komal Patel, “Penn Museum to remove Morton Cranial Collection from public view after student opposition,” The Daily Pennsylvanian, July 12, 2020. Rachel L. Swans, “272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants?” The New York Times, April 17th, 2016  Georgetown Slavery Archive and Georgetown Reflects on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation “Black at Mizzou,” APM Reports, August 14, 2020  Courtney Perrett, “MU alumna shares her 'Black at Mizzou' experience in new audio documentary,” Missourian, August 18, 2020 Eddie R. Cole, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2020) “College presidents and the struggle for Black freedom,” Princeton University Press Ideas Podcast, December 1st, 2020 Stanley Nelson and Marco Williams, Tell Them We Are Rising (PBS Independent Lens, 2018)

When we talk about Juneteenth, sometimes called America's second Independence Day, what exactly are we talking about? How has the end of slavery been celebrated across time in Black communities? What political obligations does its commemoration bring to the fore? Join our hosts, Ebun Ajayi and Mélena Laudig, as they talk with Professor Joshua B. Guild about the past, present, and future of Juneteenth.   Note: At press time, both the Senate and House have passed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday. The bill is on President Biden's desk. The Culture of __ “Celebrating Juneteenth,” ABC News, June 19, 2020 Joshua Gargiulo, “Fact check: Barack Obama mentioned Juneteenth multiple times while president,”  USA Today, June 28, 2020 Jeanine Santuci, “'I made Juneteenth very famous': Trump takes credit for holiday celebrating Emancipation Proclamation,” USA Today, June 18, 2020 “What Is Juneteenth? Dulcé Sloan Explains,” The Daily (Social Distancing) Show, June 19, 2020 “What Juneteenth tells us about the value of black life in America,” The Washington Post, June 19, 2020

Our second episode looks at the culture and politics of Black foodways, from the ways in which Black women have used food to create traditions and claim power to the contemporary politics of nutrition, stereotypes, and food shaming. Beyond the platitude that food unites us all, Ebun Ajayi and Mélena Laudig explore the diversity of ways in which food is a site where identities are constructed and contested.

In our inaugural new episode, Ebun and Mae take a deep dive into questions about the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color. From cultural responses to lockdown and the need for a government response to creating a more just and inclusive public health system, our host break down multiple dimensions of the pandemic and point toward some resources to learn more. Introduction Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, “COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities” Holmes L, Enwere M, Williams J, et al. “Black-White Risk Differentials in COVID-19 (SARS-COV2) Transmission, Mortality and Case Fatality in the United States: Translational Epidemiologic Perspective and Challenges.” Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2020;17(2):4322. DOI: https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph17124322  The Culture of __ “Cardi B Coronavirus Remix (Clean)” Dax, “Coronavirus (State of Emergency)” The Breakdown - Guest Info (Photo credit: IAPHS.org) Prof. Sharrelle Barber (https://drexel.edu/dornsife/academics/faculty/Sharrelle-Barber/) Dr. Sharrelle Barber is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on the intersection of "place, race, and health." Through empirical evidence, her work seeks to document how racism becomes "embodied" through the neighborhood context and how this fundamental structural determinant of racial health inequities can be leveraged for transformative change through anti-racist policy initiatives. Dr. Barber’s research is framed through a structural racism lens, grounded in interdisciplinary theories (e.g. Ecosocial Theory and Critical Race Theory) and employs various advanced methodological techniques including multilevel modeling and longitudinal data analyses. Her articles and commentary appear in leading publications, including the Lancet Infectious Disease, the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, and The Nation. A member of the Health Justice Advisory Committee for the Poor People’s Campaign, Dr. Barber is committed to using her scholarship to make the invisible visible, mobilize data for action, and contribute to the transnational dialogue around racism and health inequities. (Photo credit: Sameer Khan/Fotobuddy) Prof. Keith Wailoo (http://www.keithwailoo.com/) Keith Andrew Wailoo is Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University where he teaches in the Department of History and the School of Public and International Affairs. The current President of the American Association for the History of Medicine (2020-22), he is an award-winning author on drugs and drug policy; race, science, and health; genetics and society; and history of medicine, disease, health policy and medical affairs in the United States. Wailoo is currently working on several book-length projects: a history of addiction in the United States.; a history of how pandemics past and present transformed life in the United States; and Poisoning Master — a story of enslavement, drugs, the law, and racial hierarchy, set in 1850s Tennessee on the cusp of the Civil War and focusing on the trial of an enslaved girl, a nurse accused of murder. Wailoo  joins Dr. Anthony Fauci and others as a recipient of the 2021 Dan David Prize, an award endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University.  See, Hear, Do Library Company of Philadelphia - Deja Vu, We’ve Been Here Before: Race, Health, and Epidemics Theo Rogers, Milwaukee in Pain Antoine S. Johnson, Elise A. Mitchell, and Ayah Nuriddin, “Syllabus: A History of Anti-Black Racism in Medicine,” Black Perspectives (blog) Harriet A. Washington, Medical Apartheid: The Dark History of Medical Experimentation on Black Americans from Colonial Times to the Present (New York: Anchor Books, 2008) Rana A. Hogarth, Medicalizing Blackness: Making Racial Difference in the Atlantic World, 1780-1840 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2017) Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Black America has a Reason to Question Authorities”

Recent Certificate recipient, Heath Pearson, Ph.D. sits down with American Jazz Trumpeter, Christian Scott, to discuss his inspirations, his creative process, and the importance of musically challenging himself. Christian, also known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, is an architect of concepts. His signature Stretch Music, a genre-blind form, allows him to create sonic landscapes across multiple forms of sound, language, thought, and culture. At once, Trap, Alt Rock, World Music. Stretch Music is, as its creator, a collision of ideas and identities. Growing up as an heir to a Legendary Afro-New Orleanian Chieftain amidst the complexities of a racially and economically conflicted New Orleans, Adjuah’s work reflects his sensibilities: analytic, expansive and unafraid to confront the social and political realities of our time head-on. Please note that the following content contains strong langauge. Parental advisory is advised

Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. sits down with Assistant Professor Autumn Womack to explore the process of developing a book. Professor Womack sheds light on the power of the archive, the importance of honing in on your ideas, and insights on organizing your ideas for manuscript. We then join Professor Joshua Guild in conversation with activist and author Albert Woodfox. His book, Solitary, follows his unforgettable life story and journey of serving more than four decades in solitary confinement—in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana—all for a crime he did not commit. That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the U.S. and around the world.

Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. and Professor Imani Perry look back and reflect on the events of August 2019. Together, they examine the New York Times 1619 Project; its impact, backlash, and the questions it raises. Perry also shares insights on the writing style of her newly released book, Breathe: A Letter to My Sons. She speaks on the influence of Toni Morrison's literary legacy and what inspired the composition of her book.     We then sit down with Eddie Glaude Jr. and Julian E. Zelizer, Author, and Professor at Princeton University, to discuss the challenges of balancing and teaching within the academic and public media arena. They then explore the historical cycle of racialized politics displayed by President Donald Trump and its impact within America as we approach the 2020 Elections. 

In this episode, Prof. Eddie Glaude discusses with Professor Anna Arabindan-Kesson her application of research on textiles, music, and photography for her upcoming work Black Bodies White Gold. Professor Kesson, an Art Historian at heart, reveals the history and connections of blacks and cotton and their turbulent history across America and Europe. Not only does she examine the economic equivalence, in which enslaved people and cotton were commodities in the eyes of the law, but she also explores how it physically framed the way a slave looked, and in turn felt. Ultimately with this research, her goal is to examine how this history complicates what it means to be free and black in today’s world.

In this episode, Eddie Glaude sits down with Professor Wendy Belcher to discuss her recent book.  Prof. Belcher reveals her connection to Ethiopia, and how her life experiences of growing up white in Africa seep through her perspective and understanding. Professor Belcher explains how her curiosity pushed her to research, archive, and translation ancient Ethiopian writing; becoming the foundation of her recent book, The Life and Struggles of Our Mother Walatta Petros: A Seventeenth-Century African Biography of an Ethiopian Woman.

As we step into 2019, Professor Eddie Glaude, Jr. and Associate Professor Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor discuss and review the political climate of America. Prof. Taylor points out the importance of continuing to organize and mobilize social activism, like Black Lives Matter, with the understanding that a single objective is more significant than the different political views. Dr. Glaude highlights the deep fear and "Shock and Awe" around President Trump's current administration and policies. Professor Taylor warns of the dangers of moving forward as a nation with an "anything but Trump" perspective; how it lowers the expectations for parties and continues to perpetuate similar issues.  Agree or disagree? Listen, share and let us know what you think.

In this episode of the AAS 21 Podcast, Professor Kinohi Nishikawa comes to the table with Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. to discuss black pulp fiction, and taking seriously “lower” forms of literature in the college classroom, and beyond. Nishikawa’s forthcoming book, Street Players: Black Pulp Fiction and the Making of a Literary Underground is expected out November 2018 (University of Chicago Press). In particular, the book traces the many titles published by Holloway House from the late 1960’s to the imprint’s close in 2008. This fascinating discussion is deep dive into questions about genre, different communities of readers, and how modern literature, and its handling of complex topics, touches other art forms. Professor Nishikawa and Professor Glaude also discuss Nishikawa’s other major work-in-progress, Blueprints for Black Writing: African American Literature and Book Design, which considers the important yet overlooked role book design (e.g., typography, paper quality, cover art) has played in shaping modern African American literature.

In this episode of the AAS 21 podcast, Professor Ruha Benjamin and Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. discuss science and technology, the allure of objectivity related to this category of work, and consider what it takes to proceed in a “third” way. Professor Benjamin is author of People’s Science: Bodies and Rights on the Stem Cell Frontier (Stanford University Press 2013), Race After Technology, with Polity (forthcoming), and editor of Captivating Technology: Race, Technoscience, and the Carceral Imagination (Duke University Press, forthcoming), as well as numerous articles and book chapters.

Professor Joshua Guild joins the conversation in this episode of the AAS 21 Podcast. Professor Guild is an associate professor of History and African American Studies at Princeton specializing in twentieth-century African American social and cultural history, urban history, and the making of the modern African diaspora. Professor Guild discussed two works, In the Shadows of the Metropolis: Cultural Politics and Black Communities in Postwar New York and London (Oxford University Press)and The City Lives in You: The Black Freedom Struggle and the Futures of New Orleans. This wide-ranging conversation tracks how black New York, black London, and black New Orleans came into being through a comparative, but relational analysis.

In this episode of the AAS 21 podcast, Professor Glaude speaks with new colleague Autumn Womack about several projects she has in the works. Womack joined the faculty at Princeton this year as an assistant professor in departments of African American Studies and English. Womack specializes in nineteenth- and early twentieth-century African American literature, with a particular research and teaching focus on the intersection of visual technology, race, and literary culture. Womack’s forthcoming book is called Reform Divisions: Race, Visuality and Literature in the Progressive Era.

The AAS 21 Podcast is back for the first podcast of the 2017-2018 academic year. Professor Glaude speaks to his colleague, Reena N. Goldthree, about her current research into nationalism, migration and gender in Latin America and the Caribbean. Professor Goldthree is the new specialist of Afro-Atlantic histories in the Department of African American Studies at Princeton. Goldthree’s forthcoming book is called Democracy Shall be no Empty Romance: War and the Politics of Empire in the Greater Caribbean.

In this episode, Professor Glaude and Professor Judith Weisenfeld discuss the development of 'religio–racial' identity during the Great Migration. Weisenfeld is the Agate Brown and George L. Collord Professor of Religion at Princeton University. Her latest book, New World A-Coming: Black Religion and Racial Identity during the Great Migration is a historiography of twentieth-century black religious groups, including the Moorish Science Temple, the Nation of Islam, Father Divine’s Peace Mission Movement, and Ethiopian Hebrews. The two discuss the racial claims of these groups, the impact they had on the development of African American identity, and their interactions with government entities, other religious groups, and African American communities.  Weisenfeld also sheds light on her research process, which pulls from marriage and divorce certificates, immigration and naturalization records, and FBI files in order to create a multifaceted view of the practitioners.

What was marriage under slavery? Professor Tera W. Hunter’s new book, Bound in Wedlock: Slave and Free Black Marriage in the Nineteenth Century provides an intimate glimpse of the affections and complexities of black marriage in the United States from its origins. In an illuminating conversation, Professor Tera Hunter and Professor Eddie Glaude discuss major takeaways from the book, key language introduced by Hunter, and various new understandings about African American marriage and family life from 1800 to the present day. A common assumption shared by liberal and conservative commentators alike is that low marriage rates in African American communities are a byproduct of slavery. However, Hunter’s research shows that marriage among African Americans, respected by law or not, was widely embraced in earlier times. From slavery to reconstruction, a desire to marry and build lives together factored centrally in the hearts and minds of African American men and women.After marriage was legalized following emancipation, black marriage rates started to eclipse white Americans’ by the turn of the twentieth century. Hunter suggests current declining marriage rates may best be attributed to advantages offered to some Americans, and denied to other Americans at specific, consequential junctures, such as in the wake of World War II. Bound in Wedlock is a groundbreaking book which, through an extensive archive, dismantles pathologies as it fascinates.

In episode six of AAS 21 podcast, Professor Glaude is joined by teacher and friend of 30 years, Dr. Cornel West. When it comes to habits of reading, West tells of staying in contact with the best of the past, feeling incomplete if he doesn’t accomplish his nightly three hours of study. West considers artists as the vanguard of the species, and more than enjoying great literature and writing as a spectator, West believes authors provide the blueprint a person needs to live their life as a work of art. Contemporary writers like Lorraine Hansberry, Toni Morrison, Susan Sontag, and Sheldon Wolin are only a sample of the 'post-Du Bois' intellectuals West knows can bring a world of depth to a person. But in many ways, with his consistent and constant embodiment of the three pillars of piety - remembrance, reverence, and resistance - the life of West is itself a new marker of time.

Modern, and contemporary criticism of African and African diasporic art is an area of inquiry that Professor Chika Okeke-Agulu insisted must exist. Professor Okeke-Agulu, along with others like Salah Hassan and Okwui Enwezor wrote into life a genre, and a lineage of artists who diagnose and critique African nation states and related projects. Okeke-Agulu is author of the recent Postcolonial Modernism: Art and Decolonization in Twentieth-Century Nigeria, which takes a broad view. His new work, Obiora Udechukwu: Line, Image, Text, takes a more narrow view, focusing on a former teacher who he names as the most influential Nigerian artist of the 20th century. Okeke-Agulu is currently at work on a book called Contemporary African Art in the Age of the Big Man, which tells the story of contemporary art after dictatorships, civil wars, IMS, and the devastation of African economies in the 1980s.

African American Studies is a field that shows how ‘this connects to that.’ In this conversation, Professor Glaude interviews his colleague Professor Imani Perry about her expansive, pathbreaking archive. Perry discusses her forthcoming book projects, ideas about methodology, and habits of reading. One book, May We Forever Stand, a cultural history of the black national anthem “Lift Every Voice and Sing,” tells a story about black institutional life, ritual and loss. Another book, Vexy Thing: A Book on Gender, is an account of patriarchy, empire, conquest and - through a real commitment to feminist practice - liberation. Finally, Perry is at work about a book on the life of Lorraine Hansberry. Perry’s insight as a scholar trained in multiple disciplines reveals a valuable toolkit for those seeking to enter and make a difference in the academy. Glaude and Perry also discuss what they are reading and listening to today. 

Destiny A. Crockett and Asanni A. York were thirteen year-olds when Barack Obama was elected president in 2008. Crockett and York, who are good friends, are activists and student leaders in their last years at Princeton. York is a concentrator in the Woodrow Wilson School of Public Policy earning a certificate in African American Studies and Crockett is a concentrator in the Department of English earning a certificate in African American Studies. The two join Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr., who has taught them both, for a conversation about what it has meant to them to mature politically during Obama’s presidency, their research and coursework in African American Studies, the organizing movement work they’ve done on campus and in the world, and how they are now imagining their activist futures in the context of President-Elect Donald Trump.

In the second episode of the AAS 21 podcast, Professor Eddie S. Glaude Jr. spoke with Wallace Best, Professor of Religion and African American Studies about his forthcoming book, Looking for Langston: American Religion and the Bard of Harlem. In the book, Professor Best encourages readers to read Langston Hughes religiously, and as a humanist in the tradition of American Religious Liberalism. Though Hughes was criticized, censored and even humiliated by other writers, and federal investigators, because of some of his more radical work like the poem ‘Goodbye Christ,’ Best contends that even through imagining a critical discourse with God, Hughes demonstrates an acknowledgement as to the existence of God. In fact, Hughes was a lover of gospel music and an avid churchgoer, never belonging to one church, but present in his own way in many, reflecting Hughes’ evasive way of being, a style Best describes as influenced by Walt Whitman and Carl Sandburg. Best’s new work is the result of 12 years of archival research and “communing with Langston."

In the first podcast produced by the Princeton University Department of African American Studies, colleagues Eddie Glaude Jr., Imani Perry, Naomi Murakawa, and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor discuss, among other topics, contemporary American politics and the disaster called this election. The discussion moves from examining the political policy points put forward by Clinton and Trump to the political vision put forward by the Movement for Black Lives. The group also addresses the demands of mainstream media, considers how scholars and activists may understand their interaction with media, and discusses how scholars and activists may serve as bridges to one another. This podcast was recorded, edited, and published by the Department of African American Studies at Princeton University. Social Media Manager / Producer - Allison Bland Audio Engineer & Technical Specialist - Elio Lleo Music: Courtney Bryan