Mark Anthony Neal, "Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive" (NYU Press, 2022)

New Books in African American Studies · Jun 10, 2022 · 1h 8m

We are living in an era of unprecedented access to popular culture: contemporary digital infrastructure provides anyone with an internet connection access to a dizzying array of cultural objects past and present, which mingle and connect in fascinating, bizarre and sometimes troubling ways. In Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive (NYU Press, 2022), Mark Anthony Neal considers the opportunities and challenges that this vast archive represents for Black American culture, with a particular focus on music and sound. He suggests that despite the profusion of what he…