Podcasts about farah jasmine griffin

As America closes out this year's Black History Month, Jacke dives into the archives for one of his favorite episodes, which featured a conversation with Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin about her book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. PLUS friend of the show Scott Carter stops by to talk about the version of the gospels that Charles Dickens wrote. This episode originally ran on November 15, 2021. It's presented here without the insertion of advertising. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Do we perhaps deserve the impossible? This is only one of the many beautiful questions Marquis Bey asks in this poem of an episode. Marquis is an exquisite thinker who joins me to speak about the incredible book Black Trans Feminism and share thoughts about why such a feminism is for everyone. Marquis speaks about how literature allows us to imagine new possibilities to exist in the world and see how everything is entangled with everything else. Join me to learn from Marquis, to think about abolition, coalition, fugitivity and traniflesh, and to imagine what the world could be beyond the realistic and the possible.  References:https://www.marquisbey.com/Marquis Bey's Black Trans Feminism (Duke UP, 2022)Marquis Bey's Cistem Failure (Duke UP, 2022)Marquis Bey's The Problem of the Negro as a Problem for Gender (University of Minnesota Press, 2020)Marquis Bey's “RE: [No Subject]—On Nonbinary Gender.” Qui Parle: Critical Humanities and Social Sciences (2022)Saidiya HartmanAlexis Pauline Gumbs' M Archive and UndrownedLauryn HillDenise Ferreira da SilvaToni MorrisonN.K. JemisinOctavia ButlerRivers SolomonAndrew CutroneSarah Jane CervenakFred MotenRoxane GayStefano HarneyJack HalberstamTina CamptRalph EllisonTranifleshEmma HeaneyHortense Spillers' “Mama's baby, papa's maybe”K. Marshall GreenTreva EllisonTranifest Spillers, Hortense, et al. "" Whatcha gonna do?": Revisiting ‘Mama's baby, papa's maybe:' An American grammar book": A conversation with Hortense Spillers, Saidiya Hartman, Farah Jasmine Griffin, Shelly Eversley, & Jennifer L. Morgan." Women's Studies Quarterly 35.1/2 (2007): 299-309.Abraham Weil https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ua_Hm6weProCiara CreminTransgender Theory (Bloomsbury)https://www.bloomsbury.com/uk/series/transgender-theory/A Nonbinary Life (forthcoming) Asterisk (Duke UP) https://www.dukeupress.edu/series/asterisk-gender-trans-and-all-that-comes-afterJian Neo ChenSusan StrykerEliza SteinbockC. Riley Snorton's Black On Both SidesJess Goldberg's Abolition TimeFrieren  Questions you should be able to respond to after listening:     What is Black Trans Feminism? Why is it for everyone?     How can identities provide comfort and safety and why is that not always useful?     What are the terms Marquis thinks about in relation to allyship?     How does Marquis define traniflesh?     Which thinkers inform Marquis' thinking about fugitivity and what is the central metaphor Marquis introduces here?     What might be challenging about thinking Black Trans Feminism in the way Marquis proposes it?     How do you feel about the impossible and the unrealistic?

Essayist Farah Jasmine Griffin, whose collection In Search of a Beautiful Freedom won the JJA's 2024 Jazz Book of the Year: History, Criticism and Culture,  talks about her focus on jazz and its relevance across many realms of thought, with Fiona Ross, member of the JJA's book committee and founder of Women in Jazz Media.

Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly.Author: La Marr Jurelle BruceHyperlinked above is their academia.edu page, which has a lovely biography and two more brilliant articles available to read. Remember that orienting oneself with the author (who wrote it? for what reason?) aids in understanding their arguments. There is no one viewpoint of objectivity.Presented in audio is a reading of pages 1-11 of How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind. The full chapter has been made available by Duke University Press right here, so you can listen and read along! I highlyrecommend this method of learning for maximum absorption.Dr. Bruce also gave this illuminating talk with Farah Jasmine Griffin at the Barnard Center of Research on Women. Author talks are also phenomenal resources for digesting academic prose (or in this case, prose poetry).Remember the questions we ask when we consider a set of claims critically:(1) who wrote it?(2) for what reason?(3) for what audience?(4) what's missing?Additionally, while not provided here, this book has one of the most stunning acknowledgement sections I have ever read. And I do own this book in physical copy. Just saying. We've been chatting in the discord, which I am apparently bad at hyperlinking but I will ask someone to share the right link in the comments :)post script: i did not have to ask, someone did post a link in the discord! thank you!happy reading

Hold tight. The way to go mad without losing your mind is sometimes unruly. Author: La Marr Jurelle BruceHyperlinked above is their academia.edu page, which has a lovely biography and two more brilliant articles available to read. Remember that orienting oneself with the author (who wrote it? for what reason?) aids in understanding their arguments. There is no one viewpoint of objectivity.Presented in audio is a reading of pages 1-11 of How to Go Mad Without Losing Your Mind. The full chapter has been made available by Duke University Press right here, so you can listen and read along! I highly recommend this method of learning for maximum absorption.Dr. Bruce also gave this illuminating talk with Farah Jasmine Griffin at the Barnard Center of Research on Women. Author talks are also phenomenal resources for digesting academic prose (or in this case, prose poetry).Remember the questions we ask when we consider a set of claims critically:(1) who wrote it?(2) for what reason?(3) for what audience?(4) what's missing?Additionally, while not provided here, this book has one of the most We've been chatting in the discord, which I am apparently bad at hyperlinking but I will ask someone to share the right link in the comments :)happy reading

Diverse Voices Book Review host Hopeton Hay interviewed Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of IN SEARCH OF BEAUTIFUL FREEDOM: New and Selected Essays.  IN SEARCH OF BEAUTIFUL FREEDOM brings together the best work from Farah Jasmine Griffin's rich forays on music, Black feminism, literature, the crises of Hurricane Katrina and COVID-19, and the Black artists she esteems.  Griffin is a professor of African American and African diaspora studies and English and comparative literature at Columbia University. Diverse Voices Book Review Social Media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshayEmail: hbh@diversevoicesbookreview.com

For years, pop culture critics Len Webb and Vincent Williams have hosted the podcast The Micheaux Mission, which aims to watch and review every Black film ever released. In this episode, Jacke talks to Len and Vincent about their new limited-run series The Class of 1989, which focuses on six films (Harlem Nights, Lean on Me, Glory, A Dry White Season, Do the Right Thing, and Driving Miss Daisy) that helped spark a Black film renaissance. Additional listening suggestions: 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) 94 Smoke, Dusk, and Fire - The Jean Toomer Story 485 Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America (with Dr Tara Bynum) 103 Literature Goes to the Movies Part 1 - Great Adaptations (with Mike Palindrome) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

"In the early United States, a Black person committed an act of resistance simply by reading and writing. Yet we overlook that these activities also brought pleasure." In this episode, Jacke talks to Dr. Tara A. Bynum about her new book, Reading Pleasures: Everyday Black Living in Early America, which finds the "joyous, if messy, humanity" in the lives and works of four canonical Black writers from the 18th and early 19th centuries. Additional listening suggestions: The Trials of Phillis Wheatley 358 The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) 291 The Book of Firsts (with Ulrich Baer and Smaran Dayal) Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/donate. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

En av jazzens största stjärnor. En legendarisk, trollbindande röst, men med en sprängkraft som gjorde henne till en samhällsfara i ögonen på myndigheterna som inledde jakten på henne och aldrig släppte taget om sitt villebråd. Redaktionen för detta avsnitt består av:Cecilia Düringer programledare och manusElina Perdahl research och manusEmilia Mellberg producentPablo Leiva Wenger scenuppläsareElias Klenell ljuddesign och slutmixMedverkar gör också Viveka Hellström, tidigare forskningsarkivarie på Svenskt visarkivs jazzavdelning.Vill du veta mer om Billie Holiday? Här är några av de böcker som ligger till grund för avsnittet:Lady sings the blues av Billie HolidayBillie Holiday av Julia BlackburnBillie Holiday the musician and the myth av John F. SzwedIf you cant be free, be a mystery in search of Billie Holiday av Farah Jasmine Griffin

Dans son livre If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery : In Search of Billie Holiday, Farah Jasmine Griffin écrivait : « Toutes les biographies de Billie se disputent pour imposer leur version de sa vie. A chaque fois qu'une nouvelle interprétation est lancée, on se sent à la fois plus proche et plus éloigné de Holiday ». Il est vrai que la chanteuse fut l'une des plus énigmatiques icônes de l'histoire de la musique populaire. On disait d'elle qu'elle modelait ses anecdotes en fonction de ses interlocuteurs, et que son autobiographie Lady Sing The Blues, sortie en 1956, s'arrangeait avec la réalité. Et c'était de bonne guerre, puisque bien des plumes allaient plus tard dépeindre la Billie qui les arrangerait. Celle qu'on surnommait Lady Day devint, à la fin des années 30, la plus célèbre figure du jazz vocal grâce à Strange Fruit, hymne antiraciste et première « protest-song » de l'histoire. Son parcours violent et hors-normes, de la misère des rues de Baltimore à la gloire des plus prestigieux clubs newyorkais, allait fasciner le monde entier par sa force symbolique. Devenue mythe, Billie Holiday survécut à elle-même pour figurer parmi les contes et légendes du XXe siècle. Quelques références… Des livres : - Lady In Satin de Julia Blackburn - Blues et Féminisme Noir d'Angela Davis - Lady Sings the Blues de Billie Holiday & William Dufty - Billie Holiday de Sylvia Fol De la musique : - Lady Sings the Blues – Billie Holiday, UMG Recordings (1956) - Solitude – Billie Holiday, UMG Recordings (1956) - Lady in Satin – Billie Holiday & Ray Ellis, Columbia Records (1958) - The Complete Decca Recordings – Billie Holiday, The Verve Music Group (1991) - Complete Jazz Series 1935-1937 – Billie Holiday & Teddy Wilson, Body & Soul SARL (2010) - All of Me – Billie Holiday & Lester Young, Bentville Records (2014) Un doc : - Billie Holiday Documentary – the BBC « Reputations » Series (2001)

Tomorrow Is The Problem PodcastWelcome to the ICA Miami Podcast. Each season, we'll explore familiar concepts from everyday life that we often take for granted.We'll expand these concepts to understand their critical historical and cultural underpinnings and forever change the way you view them.Sound WavesThe focus of this second season is sound as art, music, protest, and violence.An exploration of how sounds shape our experience of the world requires a study of music, but also that of the less explored sonic landscapes that exist outside of the anthropomorphic auditory register.Jazz as a Critical Way of LifeImprovisation is the shaping force of jazz, but as it shapes jazz it also structures community, and enables resistance.Today's episode explores where jazz finds its roots and how far it sends its shoots.Time Stamps + Takeaways[0:00] Prose — poetry, improvisation, and the world — as shaped by jazz. [2:49] The structure of jazz in opposition to the discourse that jazz has no design. Donna shares her thoughts on the expansive musical genre.[4:47] Farah Jasmine Griffin on how the U.S. was using jazz as a tool to showcase democratic equality on the world stage, while many jazz artists continued to critique American racial politics and colonialism.[7:03] The meaning of jazz and improvisation through the eyes and hands of Endea Owens, Juilliard graduate and house bassist for the Late Show with Steven Colbert alongside.[11:45] Farah shares her experience of jazz in New York — especially on a random weekday.[17:40] How improvisation shapes more than jazz — more than art — a community.[21:00] Writing as a question to be answered and its relationship to jazz and improvisation, according to Farah.[24:23] Endea speaks of her community involvement and the impacts of music, and especially live music, on neighborhoods.[26:47] Before jazz became a myth, Farrah recounts the History.[30:56] The pandemic may have launched a new-found need for natural, free, unique sounds of improvisational jazz. Endea shares Solange's ask, as well as her own hopes for the future of jazz, and women in jazz.[34:35] Episode 8 is next: Sounds Silence (Listening).Contributors + GuestsFarah Jasmine Griffin / Professor.Endea Owens / Musician.Donna Honarpisheh / Assistant Curator and Host.This podcast was made in partnership with Podfly Productions. This episode was written by Jocelyn Arem and Donna Honarpisheh, and edited by Frances Harlow. Our showrunner is Jocelyn Arem, and our Sound Designer and Audio Mixer is Nina Pollock. Links + LearnICA MIAMIPodflyJunk, by Bruno Hunger and Gregor HuberTony MorrisonNathaniel MackeyFred Moten poetic workCharles GainesTerry AtkinsMaya Konfeld, Structure in the Moment, Rhythm Section ResponsivityJelly Roll MortonLouis ArmstrongDuke EllingtonBillie HolidayElla FizgeraldBlue NoteEsperanza SpaldingRobert GlassperAmiri BarakaDizzy GillespieJon BaptisteGeri AllenBrandee YoungerJoyce JonesCassandra WilsonThe Community CookoutSolangeQuotes + Social“I think that that's one of the great difficulties of being a minority group in the United States that has suffered at the hands of the government, but then also being used by the government.” — Farah Jasmine Griffin“Jazz to me is freedom of expression. Of course, it's Black freedom of expression … It morphed into something that was so free and so just such a breath of fresh air that it is now an inclusive art that's for everyone.” — Endea Owens“I sometimes start writing because I don't know the answer … for me, writing starts with a question.” — Farah Jasmine Griffin

Farah Jasmine Griffin - William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University. She joins Tavis for a conversation about her award-winning book “Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature.” A book where she "entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy" (Hour 2)

Consider supporting Human Voices Wake us by clicking here: https://anchor.fm/humanvoiceswakeus/support I've gone through my favorite interviews with the novelist Toni Morrison and put together my favorite bits. I've gathered them into these segments: (:35) On love (parental, romantic, religious) (8:25) On childhood, family history, and being a parent and a writer (43:32) On race, writing in difficult political and social moments, and being more interested in good than evil (1:11:48) On writing in general, and specifically the writing of Beloved The interviews I've drawn from are these: Toni Morrison In Depth, on C-SPAN Toni Morrison on Charlie Rose in 1993, 1998, and 2015 Toni Morrison, interviewed by Junot Diaz Toni Morrison interview by Farah Jasmine Griffin at the 92nd Street Y Toni Morrison on NPR's Fresh Air: in 2015, and a Retrospective Toni Morrison on BBC's World Book Club Any comments, or suggestions for readings I should make in later episodes, can be emailed to humanvoiceswakeus1@gmail.com. --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/humanvoiceswakeus/support

Farah Jasmine Griffin in conversation with Robin D.G. Kelley, discussing her new book "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature," published by W.W. Norton & Co. This event was originally broadcast via Zoom and hosted by Josiah Luis Alderete. You can purchase copies of "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature" directly from City Lights here: https://citylights.com/new-nonfiction-in-hardcover/read-until-you-understand/ Farah Jasmine Griffin is a professor of English at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the author of "Who Set You Flowin'?": The African-American Migration Narrative, and the coeditor of "A Stranger in the Village: Two Centuries of African-American Travel Writing." She has been the recipient of fellowships from the Ford Foundation and the Bunting Institute at Radcliffe College. She lives in Philadelphia. Robin D.G. Kelley is a scholar history of social movements in the U.S., the African Diaspora, and Africa; black intellectuals; music and visual culture; Surrealism, Marxism, among other things. His essays have appeared in a wide variety of professional journals as well as general publications, including the Journal of American History, American Historical Review, The Nation, Monthly Review, New York Times, Color Lines, Counterpunch, Souls, Black Renaissance/Renaissance Noir, Social Text ,The Black Scholar, Journal of Palestine Studies, and Boston Review, for which he serves as Contributing Editor. He is the author of "Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times" (Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 2012); "Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original" (The Free Press, 2009); "Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination" (Beacon Press, 2002); with Howard Zinn and Dana Frank, "Three Strikes: The Fighting Spirit of Labor's Last Century" (Beacon Press, 2001); "Yo' Mama's Disfunktional!: Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America"(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997); "Race Rebels: Culture, Politics, and the Black Working Class" (New York: The Free Press, 1994); "Into the Fire: African Americans Since 1970" (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996) [Vol. 10 of the Young Oxford History of African Americans series]; "Hammer and Hoe: Alabama Communists During the Great Depression" (Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1990). This event was made possible by support from the City Lights Foundation: citylights.com/foundation

Today we talk with Farah Jasmine Griffin (Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature) about telling her family's story alongside Black history and literature, bearing witness, her favorite contemporary works, her new book(s), and more! Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow and an Andrew Mellon Foundation Scholar in Residence. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Novelist Beverly Gologorsky joins Jacke for a discussion of the tumultuous years from 1967 to 1971, which provides the background for her new novel. In Can You See the Wind?, a working-class family in the Bronx struggles to make a better world, even as the world spins into chaos. Columbia professor (and friend of the podcast) Farah Jasmine Griffin says "Beverly Gologorsky brings a clarity of vision and purpose to this extraordinary novel—a story about the complexities and love that both bring families, lovers and comrades together and tears them apart. Can You See the Wind? renders the urgency of political movements as well as moments of individual contemplation. That she does so in breathtaking prose is a testament to her brilliance and artistry." Additional listening suggestions: Episode 358 - The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (with Farah Jasmine Griffin) Episode 382 - Forbidden Victorian Love (with Mimi Matthews) Episode 158 - "The Things They Carried" by Tim O'Brien Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin is a brilliant woman who heads the African-American studies department at Columbia. She's been a friend for a long time and it was an honor to talk to her about her new book Read Until You Understand which dives into the brilliance of Black people. She'll remind you of your favorite professor. Toure Show Episode 322 Host & Writer: Touré Executive Producers: Jennifer Ford and Ryan Woodhall Associate Producer: Adell Coleman Photographers: Chuck Marcus, Shanta Covington, and Nick Karp Booker: Claudia Jean The House: DCP Entertainment Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin was deeply troubled by the political turmoil happening across the U.S. during the 2016 presidential campaign. She began writing a literary memoir, "Read Until You Understand," which explores what democracy means for the lives and work of Black authors and activists, and herself. Here's her Brief But Spectacular take on Black life and literature. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin was deeply troubled by the political turmoil happening across the U.S. during the 2016 presidential campaign. She began writing a literary memoir, "Read Until You Understand," which explores what democracy means for the lives and work of Black authors and activists, and herself. Here's her Brief But Spectacular take on Black life and literature. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

Columbia University professor Farah Jasmine Griffin was deeply troubled by the political turmoil happening across the U.S. during the 2016 presidential campaign. She began writing a literary memoir, "Read Until You Understand," which explores what democracy means for the lives and work of Black authors and activists, and herself. Here's her Brief But Spectacular take on Black life and literature. PBS NewsHour is supported by - https://www.pbs.org/newshour/about/funders

As we continue to celebrate #JazzAppreciationMonth, today we drop in on Billie Holiday, the singer and artist who not only influenced peers and progeny alike with her inventive interpretation and phrasing in songs, but also composed several of her signature songs which in turn became jazz and blues standards.To learn more about Billie Holiday, read If You Can't Be Free, Be A Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday by Farah Jasmine Griffin, check out the 2019 documentary Billie on Hulu, watch clips of Holiday in New Orleans on YouTube take 2021's The United States vs. Billie Holiday, also on Hulu. And there's Lady Day at Emerson's Bar & Grill on Amazon Prime Video. Also watch her classic 1957 performance of “Fine and Mellow” on CBS's Sound of Jazz and listen to the 2021 podcast on Audible, Billie Was a Black Woman,Sources:https://www.npr.org/2020/12/03/940104383/new-documentary-billie-explores-mysteries-of-billie-holiday-and-her-biographerhttps://www.npr.org/2019/08/23/748740849/returning-to-lady-a-reflection-on-two-decades-in-search-of-billie-holidayhttps://www.biography.com/musician/billie-holidayhttps://www.pbs.org/wnet/americanmasters/billie-holiday-about-the-singer/68/https://www.si.edu/spotlight/billie-holidayhttps://youtu.be/YKqxG09wlIA (“Fine and Mellow” on Sound of Jazz)https://youtu.be/hKimh-iPd_0 (Billie documentary trailer)

Abigail K. Perry takes an in-depth look at READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND by Farah Jasmine Griffin. In this special BONUS episode, Abigail uses the five commandments to analyze the structure in the first scene, and seven key questions every reader can use to determine if the first chapter will hook its readers. READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND is a great example of how to start a memoir that blends other elements of nonfiction books like history and art. The goal of these bonus episodes is to provide writers with tools and examples to help them craft the best first chapters for their book before querying a literary agent. THE CHANDLER LEGACIES FIRST CHAPTER ANALYSIS (DOWNLOAD COMING SOON!): The Five Commandments: Scene Structure Inciting Incident Turning Point Crisis Question Climax Resolution 7 Key First Chapter Questions (Beyond Structure): *taken from THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO BEGINNINGS by Paula Munier* What kind of story is it? What is the story really about? Who is telling the story? Which character should they care about most? Where and when does the story take place? How should they feel about what's happening? Why should they care what happens next? About Jasmine Griffin Jr.: Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies. Professor Griffin received her B.A. in History & Literature from Harvard and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. She is the author or editor of eight books including Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative (Oxford, 1995), If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press, 2001), and Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (Basic Books, 2013). THE CHANDLER LEGACIES Blurb: Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase "read until you understand," a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students. Here, she shares a lifetime of discoveries: the ideas that inspired the stunning oratory of Frederick Douglass and Malcolm X, the soulful music of Marvin Gaye and Stevie Wonder, the daring literature of Phillis Wheatley and Toni Morrison, the inventive artistry of Romare Bearden, and many more. Exploring these works through such themes as justice, rage, self-determination, beauty, joy, and mercy allows her to move from her aunt's love of yellow roses to Gil Scott-Heron's "Winter in America." Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. She challenges us to reckon with our commitment to all the nation's inhabitants and our responsibilities to all humanity. Find us on our socials: Twitter: @abigailkperry | @FJasmineG Instagram: @abigailkperry | @farahjgriffinbooks Website: www.abigailkperry.com | www.farahjasminegriffin.com Read the books discussed in this episode: READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND THE WRITER'S GUIDE TO BEGINNINGS

Welcome to Open Form, a new weekly film podcast hosted by award-winning writer Mychal Denzel Smith. Each week, a different author chooses a movie: a movie they love, a movie they hate, a movie they hate to love. Something nostalgic from their childhood. A brand-new obsession. Something they've been dying to talk about for ages and their friends are constantly annoyed by them bringing it up. In this episode, Mychal talks to Farah Jasmine Griffin (Read Until You Understand) about the 2018 film If Beale Street Could Talk, directed by Barry Jenkins, adapted from the novel by James Baldwin, and starring Regina King, KiKi Layne, Stephan James, and Colman Domingo. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Farah Jasmine Griffin joined me today to talk about her new book from WW Norton, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. Also covered - the importance of education, freedom of political thought, book banning and the impact of literature on those whose voices are silenced.  Read the Transcript Support the Podcast Follow on Facebook   Farah's Links: Site Twitter Instagram   Ad Links: Vellum Help You Find Me PubSite Love in Times of War

Clive Nwonka is joined by Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of Read Until You Understand, a deeply personal and wide-ranging mediation on Black culture, political freedom and humanity. Farah discusses writing with an ethic of care, honouring grace, mercy and beauty, and the relationship between rage and resistance. Farah also reflects on what she sees as the three sites of engagement for African-American and African diasporic studies: in the classroom, in the world, and in the planet.Transcript: www.ucl.ac.uk/racism-racialisation/transcript-conversation-farah-jasmine-griffinThis conversation was recorded on 18th February 2022Speakers: Clive Nwonka, Lecturer in Film, Culture and Society at UCL's Institute of Advanced Studies // Farah Jasmine Griffin, William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia UniversityImage: Photo © Peggy Dillard TooneExecutive producer: Paul GilroyProducer: Kaissa KarhuEditor: Kaissa Karhu and Anita Langarywww.ucl.ac.uk/racism-racialisation/podcasts See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this episode of Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of the book, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. Dr. Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She is also the author of five books, the most recent being one that intermixes critical literary analysis with personal narrative. Episode Notes _________________________On this episode of Black & Published, Nikesha speaks with Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin, author of the book, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. Dr. Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University. She is also the author of five books, the most recent being one that intermixes critical literary analysis with personal narrative. During the conversation, Dr. Griffin opens up about how she's been writing versions of Read Until You Understand since she was a child. She also discusses how she's worked to distinguish her literary voice outside of the academy, centering Black literature in the quest for Black liberation, and her chance encounters in Philadelphia with Patti LaBelle and Toni Cade Bambara. Support the show (https://paypal.me/nikeshaelise)

How to write memoir based on the books that you've read

Acclaimed writer and professor Farah Jasmine Griffin joins co-hosts V.V. Ganeshananthan and Whitney Terrell to talk about why book bans so often target the power of Black literature. Griffin discusses the censorship of Black authors like Toni Morrison as well as communities' efforts to preserve and share Black stories when schools won't. Author of Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, Griffin discusses how her own exposure to Black authors like Morrison and James Baldwin came largely from her own father, outside of the classroom.  To hear the full episode, subscribe through iTunes, Google Play, Stitcher, Spotify, or your favorite podcast app (include the forward slashes when searching). You can also listen by streaming from the player below. Check out video versions of our interviews on the Fiction/Non/Fiction Instagram account, the Fiction/Non/Fiction YouTube Channel, and our show website: https://www.fnfpodcast.net/ This podcast is produced by Anne Kniggendorf. Selected Readings: Farah Jasmine Griffin Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature  “Banning Toni Morrison's books doesn't protect kids. It just sanitizes racism.” | The Washington Post Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative Others: The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison “Missouri school district bans Toni Morrison's ‘The Bluest Eye'” | Today Ralph Ellison “The Little Man at Chehaw Station” and “The Novel as a Function of American Democracy” by Ralph Ellison from Going to the Territory Beloved by Toni Morrison Toni Morrison James Baldwin If Beale Street Could Talk by James Baldwin The 1619 Project Nikole Hannah-Jones Adam Serwer on Critical Race Theory and the Very American Fear of Owning Up to Our Racist Past and Present Fiction/Non/Fiction Season 4, Episode 20 Angela Davis Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department. In her most recent book, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, published September 14 by W.W. Norton, Griffin pays homage to family and community through generations of Black geniuses.How Do You Write Podcast: Explore the processes of working writers with bestselling author Rachael Herron. Want tips on how to write the book you long to finish? Here you'll gain insight from other writers on how to get in the chair, tricks to stay in it, and inspiration to get your own words flowing. Join Rachael's Slack channel, Onward Writers!Join Rachael Says Write and get a week free to see if you like it! See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

“Everyone has a creative spark inside of them.” - Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin Today's bonus featured bestselling author is writer, teacher, scholar, and the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin. Dr. Farah and I talk about her latest book, “Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature”, how some of her students inspired her as a professor, and more!!!   Key Things You'll Learn: What inspired her book. What led her to become a college professor. What lessons she learned from being a professor. Her process for choosing which titles to highlight in her book. Her upcoming book projects.     Dr. Farah's Site: https://www.farahjasminegriffin.com/ Dr. Farah's Books: https://www.amazon.com/Farah-Jasmine-Griffin/e/B000APJXM6?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000   The opening track is titled “Set Sail” by Sparks Dynamite. To cop the whole track, click the following link. https://planetastroproductions.bandcamp.com/track/set-sail-intro   You May Also Like…   Ep. 350 – “Stay on Track Tips” with Dr. Ro (@everythingro): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-350-stay-on-track-tips-with-dr-ro-everythingro/   Ep. 365 – “My Poetry Is the Beauty You Overlook” with Kim B. Miller (@pwcpoetlaur2020): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-365-my-poetry-is-the-beauty-you-overlook-with-kim-b-miller-pwcpoetlaur2020/   98 - "It Takes 10 Years to Be an Overnight Success" with Pamela Hilliard Owens (@YB2C_System): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/98-it-takes-10-years-to-be-an-overnight-success-with-pamela-hilliard-owens-yb2c_system/   257 – “It's Time To Fly Away” with Dr. Froswa' Booker-Drew (@Froswa): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/257-its-time-to-fly-away-with-dr-froswa-booker-drew-froswa/   Ep. 420 – “The UPside of Failure” with Tiana Sanchez (@likearealboss): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-420-the-upside-of-failure-with-tiana-sanchez-likearealboss/   31 - "Power Living" with Pam Reaves (@pamela_reaves): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/31-power-living-with-pam-reaves-pamela_reaves/   97 - "Words From Awaki" with Dr. Bernetha George: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/97-words-from-awaki-with-dr-bernetha-george/   221 – “Righteous Leadership” with Dr. Ray Charles (@TheDrRayCharles): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/221-righteous-leadership-with-dr-ray-charles-thedrraycharles/   Ep. 316 – “Ubuntu Leadership” with Dr. LaMarr Darnell Shields (@LaMarrDShields): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-316-ubuntu-leadership-with-dr-lamarr-darnell-shields-lamarrdshields/   Ep. 307 – “Failure Is Not The Problem, It's The Beginning Of Your Success” with Col. George Milton: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-307-failure-is-not-the-problem-its-the-beginning-of-your-success-with-col-george-milton/   119 - "A Passion for High Performance & Professional Development" with Dr. Elizabeth Carter (@eacaappeal): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/119-a-passion-for-high-performance-professional-development-with-dr-elizabeth-carter-eacaappeal/   Ep. 313 – “Ask Uncle Neil” with Neil Thompson (@teachthegeek): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-313-ask-uncle-neil-with-neil-thompson-teachthegeek/   174 - "Passion, Purpose & Promise" with Dr. Rhonda Glover: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/174-passion-purpose-promise-with-dr-rhonda-glover/   253 – “Purpose, Passion, Vision, and Destiny” with Tanya J. Miller (@TalkingwitTanya): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/253-purpose-passion-vision-and-destiny-with-tanya-j-miller-talkingwittanya/   255 – “Women Who Soar” with Pastor Paulette Harper (@pauletteharper): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/255-women-who-soar-with-pastor-paulette-harper-pauletteharper/   Ep. 412 – “Why Boomer, Xer, Millennial and Gen Z Labels Need Reimagined” with Dr. Rick Chromey (@MyGenTech2020): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-412-why-boomer-xer-millennial-and-gen-z-labels-need-reimagined-with-dr-rick-chromey-mygentech2020/   224 – “A Ride to Remember” with Amy Nathan (@AmyNathanBooks): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/224-a-ride-to-remember-with-amy-nathan-amynathanbooks/   145 - "One Thing at a Time: And That One Thing is Me" with Lisa C. Butler (@AuthorLButler): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/145-one-thing-at-a-time-and-that-one-thing-is-me-with-lisa-c-butler-authorlbutler/

“Everyone has a creative spark inside of them.” - Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin Today's bonus featured bestselling author is writer, teacher, scholar, and the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin. Dr. Farah and I talk about her latest book, “Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature”, how some of her students inspired her as a professor, and more!!!   Key Things You'll Learn: What inspired her book. What led her to become a college professor. What lessons she learned from being a professor. Her process for choosing which titles to highlight in her book. Her upcoming book projects.     Dr. Farah's Site: https://www.farahjasminegriffin.com/ Dr. Farah's Books: https://www.amazon.com/Farah-Jasmine-Griffin/e/B000APJXM6?ref_=dbs_p_pbk_r00_abau_000000   The opening track is titled “Set Sail” by Sparks Dynamite. To cop the whole track, click the following link. https://planetastroproductions.bandcamp.com/track/set-sail-intro   You May Also Like…   Ep. 350 – “Stay on Track Tips” with Dr. Ro (@everythingro): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-350-stay-on-track-tips-with-dr-ro-everythingro/   Ep. 365 – “My Poetry Is the Beauty You Overlook” with Kim B. Miller (@pwcpoetlaur2020): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-365-my-poetry-is-the-beauty-you-overlook-with-kim-b-miller-pwcpoetlaur2020/   98 - "It Takes 10 Years to Be an Overnight Success" with Pamela Hilliard Owens (@YB2C_System): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/98-it-takes-10-years-to-be-an-overnight-success-with-pamela-hilliard-owens-yb2c_system/   257 – “It's Time To Fly Away” with Dr. Froswa' Booker-Drew (@Froswa): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/257-its-time-to-fly-away-with-dr-froswa-booker-drew-froswa/   Ep. 420 – “The UPside of Failure” with Tiana Sanchez (@likearealboss): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-420-the-upside-of-failure-with-tiana-sanchez-likearealboss/   31 - "Power Living" with Pam Reaves (@pamela_reaves): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/31-power-living-with-pam-reaves-pamela_reaves/   97 - "Words From Awaki" with Dr. Bernetha George: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/97-words-from-awaki-with-dr-bernetha-george/   221 – “Righteous Leadership” with Dr. Ray Charles (@TheDrRayCharles): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/221-righteous-leadership-with-dr-ray-charles-thedrraycharles/   Ep. 316 – “Ubuntu Leadership” with Dr. LaMarr Darnell Shields (@LaMarrDShields): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-316-ubuntu-leadership-with-dr-lamarr-darnell-shields-lamarrdshields/   Ep. 307 – “Failure Is Not The Problem, It's The Beginning Of Your Success” with Col. George Milton: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-307-failure-is-not-the-problem-its-the-beginning-of-your-success-with-col-george-milton/   119 - "A Passion for High Performance & Professional Development" with Dr. Elizabeth Carter (@eacaappeal): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/119-a-passion-for-high-performance-professional-development-with-dr-elizabeth-carter-eacaappeal/   Ep. 313 – “Ask Uncle Neil” with Neil Thompson (@teachthegeek): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-313-ask-uncle-neil-with-neil-thompson-teachthegeek/   174 - "Passion, Purpose & Promise" with Dr. Rhonda Glover: https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/174-passion-purpose-promise-with-dr-rhonda-glover/   253 – “Purpose, Passion, Vision, and Destiny” with Tanya J. Miller (@TalkingwitTanya): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/253-purpose-passion-vision-and-destiny-with-tanya-j-miller-talkingwittanya/   255 – “Women Who Soar” with Pastor Paulette Harper (@pauletteharper): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/255-women-who-soar-with-pastor-paulette-harper-pauletteharper/   Ep. 412 – “Why Boomer, Xer, Millennial and Gen Z Labels Need Reimagined” with Dr. Rick Chromey (@MyGenTech2020): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/ep-412-why-boomer-xer-millennial-and-gen-z-labels-need-reimagined-with-dr-rick-chromey-mygentech2020/   224 – “A Ride to Remember” with Amy Nathan (@AmyNathanBooks): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/224-a-ride-to-remember-with-amy-nathan-amynathanbooks/   145 - "One Thing at a Time: And That One Thing is Me" with Lisa C. Butler (@AuthorLButler): https://www.goingnorthpodcast.com/145-one-thing-at-a-time-and-that-one-thing-is-me-with-lisa-c-butler-authorlbutler/

https://www.alainguillot.com/farah-jasmine-griffin/ Farah Jasmine Griffin is a Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, she is the author of Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. Get the book here: https://amzn.to/36zoVGy

In November of 1863, U.S. President Abraham Lincoln boarded a train for Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. His heart was heavy with the cost of two years of a bitter civil war, his body fatigued and feverish from what was likely the onset of smallpox. In the midst of personal grief and political turmoil, he drafted and delivered one of the greatest political speeches ever written. In roughly 270 words, the Gettysburg Address (or "America's Gospel," as Tom Brokaw called it) managed to pay tribute to fallen soldiers, dedicate a cemetery in their honor, and crystallize the central dilemma at the heart of the American experiment. In this episode, Jacke looks at ten sentences that defined a nation and asked it to look deeply into its past, its future, and its soul. Additional listening ideas: For more on race in America, try our three-part series on the dispute between James Baldwin and William Faulkner, starting with Baldwin v Faulkner. Like presidential history? We talked about Thomas Jefferson in our episode on Phillis Wheatley and in our conversation on The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature with Farah Jasmine Griffin. In the mood for something different? You might like the episode in which Jacke and Mike revisit J.D. Salinger's Catcher in the Rye. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin joins host, Carol Jenkins to discuss her latest book, "Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature".

In this episode, Dr. Griffin and I talk about challenging book bans and the empathy, understanding, and knowledge that comes from learning through stories. We talk about her new book, Read Until You Understand and how this can be used as a tool in anti-racism work. Dr. Griffin's Bio: Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University, where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department. She is the author of five books including Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative (1995), If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (2001), Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever (with Salim Washington, 2008), and Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II and her new book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdomm of Black Life in Literature. Get Dr. Griffin's new book: Read Until You Understand - https://bookshop.org/books/read-until-you-understand-the-profound-wisdom-of-black-life-and-literature-9781324022046/9780393651904 Connect with Rorri and Get Additional Support: FREE Workshop: How white people can avoid unintentionally causing racial harm and navigate challenges in DEI & anti-racism work (in professional and personal spaces) Register here: https://mailchi.mp/1f036d515a40/s94dqef6cm Join the email list: https://mailchi.mp/b02360d4b5a6/sul4h5by2y Website: www.upowerchange.com

In her new book READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND, Farah Jasmine Griffinshares her stories of growing up in Philadelphia where love of black literature and the magnificence of black culture were part of her life from the time she could read. Her father nurtured her love of books and the struggle for Black freedom.    READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND probes the literary works of black writers from the beginning of the republic with poet Phyllis Wheatley, to the fiery speeches of Frederick Douglass, from legendary novelist Toni Morrison to Gil Scott Herron's prophetic song Winter In America.  Entwining memoir, history, and art, Griffin provides a guide to the wisdom of the songs, poems, and stories that can guide us in the ongoing struggle for democracy.Farah Jasmine Griffin is Chair of African-American & African Diaspora Studies and Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University. Farah Jasmine Griffin web site: https://www.farahjasminegriffin.com/ Griffin photo credit: Peggy Dilliard Toone Diverse Voices Book Review on social media:Facebook - @diversevoicesbookreviewInstagram - @diverse_voices_book_reviewTwitter - @diversebookshay

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams discusses death, love, and life with Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin. Williams is an Associate Professor of History in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Dr. Griffin is inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University where she is also the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature. She is also the author of several books and a 2021 Guggenheim Fellow. Griffin's book Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (W.W. Norton, 2021) is the main focus of this conversation. This is a profound work of memoir, intellectual history, cultural and literary studies. 

Join me and Professor Griffin as we discuss her new book, Read Until You Understand, The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature which explores timeless values that guide us, reminding us of our responsibility to ourselves and others as it also encourages us to learn the bitter truths of our history as well as the transcendent beauty and humanity of some of our responses to it. Guest Professor Farah Jasmine Griffin Farah Jasmine Griffin is Chair of African-American & African Diaspora Studies; Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies and the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University. She is also Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Jazz Studies. Professor Griffin received her B.A. from Harvard, where she majored in American History and Literature and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. Her major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, and history. She has published widely on issues of race and gender, feminism, jazz and cultural politics. Griffin is the author of Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative  (Oxford, 1995), Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford Connecticut, 1854-1868 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press,  2001) and co-author, with Salim Washington, of Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz  Collaboration Ever (Thomas Dunne, 2008), Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II, published by Basic Books in 2013 and Read Until You Understand, The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, published in 2021. Griffin collaborated with composer, pianist, Geri Allen and director, actor S. Epatha Merkerson on two theatrical projects, for which she wrote the book: The first, “Geri Allen and Friends Celebrate the Great Jazz Women of the Apollo,” with Lizz Wright, Dianne Reeves, Teri Lyne Carrington and others, premiered on the main stage of the Apollo Theater in May of 2013. The second, “A  Conversation with Mary Lou” featuring vocalist Carmen Lundy, premiered at Harlem Stage in March 2014 and was performed at The John F. Kennedy Center in May of 2016. Griffin's essays and articles have appeared in Essence, The New York Times, The  Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, Harper's Bazaar, Art Forum and numerous other publications. She is also a frequent radio commentator on political and cultural issues. Host Michael Zeldin Michael Zeldin is a well-known and highly-regarded TV and radio analyst/commentator. He has covered many high-profile matters, including the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the Gore v. Bush court challenges, Special Counsel Robert Muller's investigation of interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the Trump impeachment proceedings. In 2019, Michael was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he taught a study group on Independent Investigations of Presidents. Previously, Michael was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as Deputy Independent/ Independent Counsel, investigating allegations of tampering with presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport files, and as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, October Surprise Task Force, investigating the handling of the American hostage situation in Iran. Michael is a prolific writer and has published Op-ed pieces for CNN.com, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Hill, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post.

Join me and Professor Griffin as we discuss her new book, Read Until You Understand, The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature which explores timeless values that guide us, reminding us of our responsibility to ourselves and others as it also encourages us to learn the bitter truths of our history as well as the transcendent beauty and humanity of some of our responses to it. Guest Professor Farah Jasmine Griffin Farah Jasmine Griffin is Chair of African-American & African Diaspora Studies; Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies and the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African-American Studies at Columbia University. She is also Affiliate Faculty of the Center for Jazz Studies. Professor Griffin received her B.A. from Harvard, where she majored in American History and Literature and her Ph.D. in American Studies from Yale. Her major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, and history. She has published widely on issues of race and gender, feminism, jazz and cultural politics. Griffin is the author of Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative  (Oxford, 1995), Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford Connecticut, 1854-1868 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press,  2001) and co-author, with Salim Washington, of Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz  Collaboration Ever (Thomas Dunne, 2008), Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II, published by Basic Books in 2013 and Read Until You Understand, The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, published in 2021. Griffin collaborated with composer, pianist, Geri Allen and director, actor S. Epatha Merkerson on two theatrical projects, for which she wrote the book: The first, “Geri Allen and Friends Celebrate the Great Jazz Women of the Apollo,” with Lizz Wright, Dianne Reeves, Teri Lyne Carrington and others, premiered on the main stage of the Apollo Theater in May of 2013. The second, “A  Conversation with Mary Lou” featuring vocalist Carmen Lundy, premiered at Harlem Stage in March 2014 and was performed at The John F. Kennedy Center in May of 2016. Griffin's essays and articles have appeared in Essence, The New York Times, The  Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, Harper's Bazaar, Art Forum and numerous other publications. She is also a frequent radio commentator on political and cultural issues. Host Michael Zeldin Michael Zeldin is a well-known and highly-regarded TV and radio analyst/commentator. He has covered many high-profile matters, including the Clinton impeachment proceedings, the Gore v. Bush court challenges, Special Counsel Robert Muller's investigation of interference in the 2016 presidential election, and the Trump impeachment proceedings. In 2019, Michael was a Resident Fellow at the Institute of Politics at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he taught a study group on Independent Investigations of Presidents. Previously, Michael was a federal prosecutor with the U.S. Department of Justice. He also served as Deputy Independent/ Independent Counsel, investigating allegations of tampering with presidential candidate Bill Clinton's passport files, and as Deputy Chief Counsel to the U.S. House of Representatives, Foreign Affairs Committee, October Surprise Task Force, investigating the handling of the American hostage situation in Iran. Michael is a prolific writer and has published Op-ed pieces for CNN.com, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, The Hill, The Washington Times, and The Washington Post.

In today's episode Dario sits with poet, independent scholar, and self-ascribed cousin to all sentient beings, Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs.  As described by writer, Sharon Bridgforth,  “Alexis serves as guide and translator of vibrational realities of dreaming into how to survive, thrive and shape-shift this world.”  Dario and Alexis discuss creating our own paths outside of established institutions, particularly, academia and the church. Alexis shares thoughts on collaborating with Spirit and a love offering to anyone who has experienced spiritual violence.  Today's conversation is part 2 of our conversation with Alexis. During these conversations, we invite you to slow down and simply listen.To listen in between the pauses of life, to listen for the lessons in grief, and to listen for your own voice.  Sista Docta Pauline Gumbs leaves us with a benediction and closing ceremony for 2021.  We mentioned over the course of two conversations  A couple of books.  https://www.akpress.org/undrowned.html (Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals )by Alexis Pauline Gumbs  https://www.dukeupress.edu/dub (Dub: Finding Ceremony ) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs  A few mentors. http://alexisdeveaux.com/ (Alexis De Veaux ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Jacqui_Alexander (M Jacqui Alexander ) https://english.columbia.edu/content/farah-jasmine-griffin (Farah Jasmine Griffin ) A favorite writer. https://english.columbia.edu/content/farah-jasmine-griffin (Sharon Bridgforth ) A noted singer.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnUV4cz0gv8 (Solange ) An Academician without Institution . https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper (Anna Julia Cooper ) A spiritual experience. https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/our-vision-we-see (Mobile Homecoming) https://twitter.com/alexispauline/ (Alexis Pauline Gumbs) on Twitter https://www.instagram.com/alexispauline/ (Alexis Pauline Gumbs) on Instagram  https://www.alexispauline.com/ (Alexis Pauline Gumbs) website  This conversation was recorded on November 23, 2021.   Original Music composed by Dario Calmese, Show Art by River Wildmen, Social Art by Stéphane Lab, production Carmen D. Harris, Dario Calmese 

Farah Jasmine Griffin is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Columbia University where she also served as the inaugural Chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department. She is the author of five books including Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative (1995), If You Can't Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (2001), Clawing at the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever (with Salim Washington, 2008), and Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (2013). Farah Jasmine Griffin has taken to her heart the phrase “read until you understand,” a line her father, who died when she was nine, wrote in a note to her. She has made it central to this book about love of the majestic power of words and love of the magnificence of Black life. Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art while she keeps her finger on the pulse of the present, asking us to grapple with the continuing struggle for Black freedom and the ongoing project that is American democracy. She challenges us to reckon with our commitment to all the nation's inhabitants and our responsibilities to all humanity. Griffin has spent years rooted in the culture of Black genius and the legacy of books that her father left her. A beloved professor, she has devoted herself to passing these works and their wisdom on to generations of students. Buy Read Until You Understand The post Read Until You Understand – Ep 93 with Farah Jasmine Griffin appeared first on Read Learn Live Podcast.

In today's episode Dario sits with poet, independent scholar, and self-ascribed cousin to all sentient beings, Sista Docta Alexis Pauline Gumbs.  As described by writer, Sharon Bridgforth,  “Alexis serves as guide and translator of vibrational realities of dreaming into how to survive, thrive and shape-shift this world.”  Dario and Alexis discuss how creatives can use their own archives to find their voice and the many lessons of love that come from grief.  Today's conversation is the first of two with Alexis. During these conversations, we invite you to slow down and simply listen.To listen in between the pauses of life, to listen for the lessons in grief, and to listen for your own voice.  Sista Docta Pauline Gumbs leaves us with a benediction and closing ceremony for 2021 We mentioned over the course of two conversations  A couple of books  https://www.akpress.org/undrowned.html (Undrowned: Black Feminist Lessons from Marine Mammals )by Alexis Pauline Gumbs  https://www.dukeupress.edu/dub (Dub: Finding Ceremony ) by Alexis Pauline Gumbs  A few mentors  http://alexisdeveaux.com/ (Alexis De Veaux ) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/M._Jacqui_Alexander (M Jacqui Alexander ) https://english.columbia.edu/content/farah-jasmine-griffin (Farah Jasmine Griffin ) A favorite writer  https://english.columbia.edu/content/farah-jasmine-griffin (Sharon Bridgforth ) A noted singer  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lnUV4cz0gv8 (Solange ) An Academician without Institution  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anna_J._Cooper (Anna Julia Cooper ) A spiritual experience  https://www.mobilehomecoming.org/our-vision-we-see (Mobile Homecoming) https://twitter.com/alexispauline/ (Alexis Pauline Gumbs) on Twitter https://www.instagram.com/alexispauline/ (Alexis Pauline Gumbs) on Instagram  https://www.alexispauline.com/ (Alexis Pauline Gumbs) website  This conversation was recorded on November 23, 2021.   Original Music composed by Dario Calmese, Show Art by River Wildmen, Social Art by Stéphane Lab, production Carmen D. Harris, Dario Calmese   

In her new book Read Until You Understand, beloved professor Farah Jasmine Griffin entwines memoir, history, and art in exploring the culture of Black genius and the lessons and legacies of Black lives and literature. In this episode, Professor Griffin joins Jacke for a discussion of her father, the role literature played in her life after her father's untimely death, and the lifetime she's spent traveling through literature in search of a deeper understanding of concepts like mercy, love, justice, rage, beauty, and joy. PLUS Scott Carter, author of the play Discord: the Gospel According to Thomas Jefferson, Charles Dickens, and Count Leo Tolstoy joins Jacke for another look at three famous historical figures who each wrote their own version of the gospels. In this installment, Scott tells Jacke about the approach taken by Victorian supernova Charles Dickens. Help support the show at patreon.com/literature or historyofliterature.com/shop. The History of Literature Podcast is a member of Lit Hub Radio and the Podglomerate Network. Learn more at www.thepodglomerate.com/historyofliterature. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

John Valeri, our Mystery Man and host of Central Booking, returns to offer Halloween season recommendations for middle-grade, young adult, and adult readers. Emily has nothing but high praise for THE BOOK OF FORM AND EMPTINESS by Ruth Ozeki. She's also thrilled to discover author Zoraida Cordóva (THE INHERITANCE OF ORQUİEDA DIVINA), and you'll have to listen to hear her favorite line from the book. And even though she would have preferred to read cupcake books while on vacation, Emily did finish the dark novel, MRS. MARCH by Virginia Feito for book club. Chris finished listening to Farah Jasmine Griffin's READ UNTIL YOU UNDERSTAND: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature, which is part memoir, part literary criticism, and an exploration of African-American cultural themes. She also had a deliciously creepy experience listening to the sexy Audible Original production of CARMILLA by J. Sheridan Le Fanu. And Chris highly recommends the graphic novel SHADOW LIFE about a 70-something woman who fights death by Hiromi Goto and Ann Xu. It's also another 10th episode, which means it's GIVEAWAY time! All you have to do to be entered to win is subscribe to our monthly newsletter, which you can do here: https://www.bookcougars.com/subscriber (If you're already subscribed, you're in!)

Phyllis Wheatley, the first African-American author of a published book of poetry, wrote, “Imagination! Who can sing thy force?/Or who describe the swiftness of thy course?”. Wheatley could very well have been calling to the Black creatives, writers, orators, and leaders who would follow her. The imaginative force of Malcolm X and Toni Morrison, James Baldwin and Ta-Nehisi Coates, Barack Obama and Langston Hughes are imparted by Farah Jasmine Griffin in a series of meditations on the fundamental questions of art, politics, and the human condition in Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. Griffin blends memoir with a deep reading of the Black community's rich panoply of artists and thinkers who have made an indelible mark on America. By poring over the poems of Phyllis Wheatley, the speeches of Frederick Douglass, the lyrics of Billie Holiday, the novels of contemporary Jesmyn Ward, and others, Griffin sheds light on what it means to be human. Through this lens, Griffin explores deeper questions and themes of justice, slavery, racism, segregation, mass incarceration, and more, all the while calling the names of those recently lost, like Breonna Taylor and George Floyd. Both a celebration of Black America, and a meditative renunciation of what America has denied its Black citizenry, Griffin gives vivid tribute. Farah Jasmine Griffin was the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department at Columbia University. She is a 2021 Guggenheim Fellowship recipient. Buy the Book: Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Hardcover) Elliott Bay Books Presented by Town Hall Seattle. To become a member or make a donation click here. 

Suzanne Nossel, CEO of PEN America, and Wole Soyinka, winner of the Nobel Prize in Literature, Nigerian poet, writer and playwright and the author of the new novel, Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth (Pantheon, 2021), talk about the role of writers and literature in defending human rights and the three imprisoned Iranian writers being honored by PEN America this year and the organization's work on behalf of writers and thinkers around the globe. →PEN Literary Gala [livestream] →NYPL Live: Chronicles from the Land of the Happiest People on Earth: Wole Soyinka and Farah Jasmine Griffin Thursday, Oct. 7 at 7:30.

We wrap up our read along of The Doctors Blackwell with an interview with the author, Janice P. Nimura. Emily explores the life of one Tokyo housewife through Emily Itami's debut novel, Fault Lines, and finds solace and inspiration from Maggie Smith in her book, Keep Moving: Notes on Loss, Creativity, and Change. Meanwhile, Chris has been listening to Farah Jasmine Griffin read her new work that is part memoir and part literary & cultural history, Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature. In biblioadventures, Both Book Cougars glow on about a charming seaside library up in Maine, the Ogunquit Memorial Library which has its own look-alike Little Free Library.

Before Farah Jasmine Griffin's father died, he wrote to her a note ending with a line “read until you understand.” He would die years later when she was nine, and that line has guided her literary curiosity. In Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Norton, 2021), Griffin shares the indispensable lessons of Black wisdom that rooted her from the searing rhetoric of David Walker and Frederick Douglass to compelling Black prose of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, to the Black soul sounds of Gladys Knight and the Pips and Marvin Gaye. Weaving memoir, history, and culture, Griffin explores the themes such as mercy, love, death, beauty, and grace to help readers wrestle with the continuing struggle for freedom and American democracy. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/intellectual-history

Before Farah Jasmine Griffin's father died, he wrote to her a note ending with a line “read until you understand.” He would die years later when she was nine, and that line has guided her literary curiosity. In Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Norton, 2021), Griffin shares the indispensable lessons of Black wisdom that rooted her from the searing rhetoric of David Walker and Frederick Douglass to compelling Black prose of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, to the Black soul sounds of Gladys Knight and the Pips and Marvin Gaye. Weaving memoir, history, and culture, Griffin explores the themes such as mercy, love, death, beauty, and grace to help readers wrestle with the continuing struggle for freedom and American democracy. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Before Farah Jasmine Griffin's father died, he wrote to her a note ending with a line “read until you understand.” He would die years later when she was nine, and that line has guided her literary curiosity. In Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Norton, 2021), Griffin shares the indispensable lessons of Black wisdom that rooted her from the searing rhetoric of David Walker and Frederick Douglass to compelling Black prose of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, to the Black soul sounds of Gladys Knight and the Pips and Marvin Gaye. Weaving memoir, history, and culture, Griffin explores the themes such as mercy, love, death, beauty, and grace to help readers wrestle with the continuing struggle for freedom and American democracy. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-studies

Before Farah Jasmine Griffin's father died, he wrote to her a note ending with a line “read until you understand.” He would die years later when she was nine, and that line has guided her literary curiosity. In Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Norton, 2021), Griffin shares the indispensable lessons of Black wisdom that rooted her from the searing rhetoric of David Walker and Frederick Douglass to compelling Black prose of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, to the Black soul sounds of Gladys Knight and the Pips and Marvin Gaye. Weaving memoir, history, and culture, Griffin explores the themes such as mercy, love, death, beauty, and grace to help readers wrestle with the continuing struggle for freedom and American democracy. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/new-books-network

Before Farah Jasmine Griffin's father died, he wrote to her a note ending with a line “read until you understand.” He would die years later when she was nine, and that line has guided her literary curiosity. In Read Until You Understand: The Profound Wisdom of Black Life and Literature (Norton, 2021), Griffin shares the indispensable lessons of Black wisdom that rooted her from the searing rhetoric of David Walker and Frederick Douglass to compelling Black prose of Toni Morrison and James Baldwin, to the Black soul sounds of Gladys Knight and the Pips and Marvin Gaye. Weaving memoir, history, and culture, Griffin explores the themes such as mercy, love, death, beauty, and grace to help readers wrestle with the continuing struggle for freedom and American democracy. N'Kosi Oates is a Ph.D. candidate in Africana Studies at Brown University. Find him on Twitter at NKosiOates. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/literary-studies

Mona Siddiqui speaks to Farah Jasmine Griffin, who is the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and African American Studies at Columbia University. Griffin studied at both Harvard and Yale and her major interests are in American and African American literature, music and history. She has published widely on race and gender, jazz and cultural politics. Here she speaks of the power of education to instil hope, how the call for healing can compromise the call for justice and the generosity and creativity of young people.

For our October Narrative Medicine Rounds, we welcome Farah Jasmine Griffin, the William B. Ransford Professor of English and Comparative Literature and the inaugural chair of the African American and African Diaspora Studies Department and Director of the Institute for Research in African American Studies at Columbia University. Professor Griffin received her B.A. from Harvard, where she majored in American History and Literature and her PhD in American Studies from Yale. Her major fields of interest are American and African American literature, music, and history. She has published widely on issues of race and gender, feminism, jazz and cultural politics. Griffin is the author of Who Set You Flowin?: The African American Migration Narrative (Oxford, 1995), Beloved Sisters and Loving Friends: Letters from Rebecca Primus of Royal Oak, Maryland, and Addie Brown of Hartford Connecticut, 1854-1868 (Alfred A. Knopf, 1999), If You Can’t Be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (Free Press, 2001) and co-author, with Salim Washington, of Clawing At the Limits of Cool: Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and the Greatest Jazz Collaboration Ever (Thomas Dunne, 2008). Her most recent book is Harlem Nocturne: Women Artists and Progressive Politics During World War II (Basic Books, 2013). Professor Griffin collaborated with composer and pianist Geri Allen and director and actor S. Epatha Merkerson on two theatrical projects, for which she wrote the book: The first “Geri Allen and Friends Celebrate the Great Jazz Women of the Apollo” with Lizz Wright, Dianne Reeves, Teri Lyne Carrington and others, premiered on the main stage of the Apollo Theater in May 2013. “A Conversation with Mary Lou,” featuring vocalist Carmen Lundy, premiered at Harlem Stage in March 2014 and was performed at The John F. Kennedy Center in May 2016. Her essays and articles have appeared in Essence, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The Nation, The Guardian, Harper's Bazaar, Art Forum and other publications. She is also a frequent radio commentator on political and cultural issues. Narrative Medicine Rounds are monthly rounds on the first Wednesday of the month during the academic year hosted by the Division of Narrative Medicine in the Department of Medical Humanities and Ethics at Columbia University Irving Medical Center. These events are free and open to the public.

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa (Seagull Books, 2017) makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time. This translation presents an important and invaluable archive that documents the makings of ethnography as a field of study, as well its imbrication with colonial conquest and imperialism. In a thoughtful introduction that examines the historical context of Leiris’ journey, his personal motivations, his use of language, his triumphs and frustrations, Edwards clearly lays out the importance of this text for readers interested in anthropology, literary studies and the history of colonial encounters. Brent Hayes Edwards was awarded a 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Phantom Africa. He is also the author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2017) and The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), which was awarded the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, the Gilbert Chinard prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, and runner-up for the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. With Robert G. OMeally and Farah Jasmine Griffin, he co-edited the collection Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). His research and teaching focus on topics including African American literature, Francophone literature, theories of the African diaspora, translation studies, archive theory, black radical historiography, cultural politics in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, surrealism, experimental poetics, and jazz. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her forthcoming book, Decolonial Citizenship: Black Women’s Resistance in the Francophone World, examines Caribbean and African women’s literary and political contributions to anti-colonial movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa (Seagull Books, 2017) makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time. This translation presents an important and invaluable archive that documents the makings of ethnography as a field of study, as well its imbrication with colonial conquest and imperialism. In a thoughtful introduction that examines the historical context of Leiris’ journey, his personal motivations, his use of language, his triumphs and frustrations, Edwards clearly lays out the importance of this text for readers interested in anthropology, literary studies and the history of colonial encounters. Brent Hayes Edwards was awarded a 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Phantom Africa. He is also the author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2017) and The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), which was awarded the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, the Gilbert Chinard prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, and runner-up for the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. With Robert G. OMeally and Farah Jasmine Griffin, he co-edited the collection Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). His research and teaching focus on topics including African American literature, Francophone literature, theories of the African diaspora, translation studies, archive theory, black radical historiography, cultural politics in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, surrealism, experimental poetics, and jazz. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her forthcoming book, Decolonial Citizenship: Black Women’s Resistance in the Francophone World, examines Caribbean and African women’s literary and political contributions to anti-colonial movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa (Seagull Books, 2017) makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time. This translation presents an important and invaluable archive that documents the makings of ethnography as a field of study, as well its imbrication with colonial conquest and imperialism. In a thoughtful introduction that examines the historical context of Leiris’ journey, his personal motivations, his use of language, his triumphs and frustrations, Edwards clearly lays out the importance of this text for readers interested in anthropology, literary studies and the history of colonial encounters. Brent Hayes Edwards was awarded a 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Phantom Africa. He is also the author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2017) and The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), which was awarded the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, the Gilbert Chinard prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, and runner-up for the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. With Robert G. OMeally and Farah Jasmine Griffin, he co-edited the collection Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). His research and teaching focus on topics including African American literature, Francophone literature, theories of the African diaspora, translation studies, archive theory, black radical historiography, cultural politics in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, surrealism, experimental poetics, and jazz. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her forthcoming book, Decolonial Citizenship: Black Women’s Resistance in the Francophone World, examines Caribbean and African women’s literary and political contributions to anti-colonial movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa (Seagull Books, 2017) makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time. This translation presents an important and invaluable archive that documents the makings of ethnography as a field of study, as well its imbrication with colonial conquest and imperialism. In a thoughtful introduction that examines the historical context of Leiris’ journey, his personal motivations, his use of language, his triumphs and frustrations, Edwards clearly lays out the importance of this text for readers interested in anthropology, literary studies and the history of colonial encounters. Brent Hayes Edwards was awarded a 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Phantom Africa. He is also the author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2017) and The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), which was awarded the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, the Gilbert Chinard prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, and runner-up for the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. With Robert G. OMeally and Farah Jasmine Griffin, he co-edited the collection Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). His research and teaching focus on topics including African American literature, Francophone literature, theories of the African diaspora, translation studies, archive theory, black radical historiography, cultural politics in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, surrealism, experimental poetics, and jazz. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her forthcoming book, Decolonial Citizenship: Black Women’s Resistance in the Francophone World, examines Caribbean and African women’s literary and political contributions to anti-colonial movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa (Seagull Books, 2017) makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time. This translation presents an important and invaluable archive that documents the makings of ethnography as a field of study, as well its imbrication with colonial conquest and imperialism. In a thoughtful introduction that examines the historical context of Leiris’ journey, his personal motivations, his use of language, his triumphs and frustrations, Edwards clearly lays out the importance of this text for readers interested in anthropology, literary studies and the history of colonial encounters. Brent Hayes Edwards was awarded a 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Phantom Africa. He is also the author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2017) and The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), which was awarded the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, the Gilbert Chinard prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, and runner-up for the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. With Robert G. OMeally and Farah Jasmine Griffin, he co-edited the collection Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). His research and teaching focus on topics including African American literature, Francophone literature, theories of the African diaspora, translation studies, archive theory, black radical historiography, cultural politics in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, surrealism, experimental poetics, and jazz. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her forthcoming book, Decolonial Citizenship: Black Women’s Resistance in the Francophone World, examines Caribbean and African women’s literary and political contributions to anti-colonial movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Between 1931 and 1933, French writer Michel Leiris participated in a state-sponsored expedition to document the cultural practices of people in west and east Africa. The Mission Dakar-Djibouti employed some questionable, unethical methods to dispossess African communities of their cultural and religious artifacts and artwork. In his capacity as secretary-archivist, Leiris recorded the events, actions and observations of the mission in great detail, in a daily journal that would become L’Afrique fantome. Leiris was both critical of and to an extent complicit in the exploitative encounter between French ethnographers and the colonized people they sought to study. His journal reveals the tensions between Europe’s claims about the superiority of its civilization and the violence and barbarity of colonialism on the ground. It also bears witness to the process by which some of the holdings in the Quai Branly museum in Paris today, were taken as booty (or in Leiris’ words, “butin”) from the African continent in the early twentieth century. Brent Edward’s Phantom Africa (Seagull Books, 2017) makes L’Afrique fantome available to English-speaking readers in its entirety for the first time. This translation presents an important and invaluable archive that documents the makings of ethnography as a field of study, as well its imbrication with colonial conquest and imperialism. In a thoughtful introduction that examines the historical context of Leiris’ journey, his personal motivations, his use of language, his triumphs and frustrations, Edwards clearly lays out the importance of this text for readers interested in anthropology, literary studies and the history of colonial encounters. Brent Hayes Edwards was awarded a 2012 PEN/Heim Translation Fund Grant for Phantom Africa. He is also the author of Epistrophies: Jazz and the Literary Imagination (Harvard University Press, 2017) and The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation, and the Rise of Black Internationalism (Harvard University Press, 2003), which was awarded the John Hope Franklin Prize of the American Studies Association, the Gilbert Chinard prize of the Society for French Historical Studies, and runner-up for the James Russell Lowell Prize of the Modern Language Association. With Robert G. OMeally and Farah Jasmine Griffin, he co-edited the collection Uptown Conversation: The New Jazz Studies (Columbia University Press, 2004). His research and teaching focus on topics including African American literature, Francophone literature, theories of the African diaspora, translation studies, archive theory, black radical historiography, cultural politics in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, surrealism, experimental poetics, and jazz. Annette Joseph-Gabriel is an Assistant Professor of French and Francophone Studies at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her forthcoming book, Decolonial Citizenship: Black Women’s Resistance in the Francophone World, examines Caribbean and African women’s literary and political contributions to anti-colonial movements. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In an exclusive New York appearance, Nobel Laureate Toni Morrison reads from and discusses her new novel, God Help the Child, a searing tale about the way childhood trauma shapes and misshapes the life of an adult. She is introduced by Chirlane McCray, First Lady of New York City, and interviewed by Farah Jasmine Griffin. Recorded on April 27, 2015 in front of a live audience at New York's 92nd Street Y.

Annual Black History Month Lecture featuring Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin

Annual Black History Month Lecture featuring Dr. Farah Jasmine Griffin