Shows / New Books in African American Studies
New Books in African American Studies
This podcast is a channel on the New Books Network. The New Books Network is an academic audio library dedicated to public education. In each episode you will hear scholars discuss their recently published research with another expert in their field. Discover our 150+ channels and browse our 28,000+ episodes on our website: newbooksnetwork.com Subscribe to our free weekly Substack newsletter to get informative, engaging content straight to your inbox: https://newbooksnetwork.substack.com/…
Episodes
- New Books in African American Studies
Inquisition for Blood: The Making of a Black Female Serial Killer in the Jim Crow South with Lauren Nicole Henley (LSU Press, 2026)
For three years in the early 1900s, a serial killer zigzagged across the rice belt region of the United States, using an everyday ax to slaughter Black…
- New Books in African American Studies
The Centrality of Slavery: Empire and Enslavement in Colonial Illinois and Missouri with John Craig Hammond (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
The Centrality of Slavery: Empire and Enslavement in Colonial Illinois and Missouri (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025) examines how French and American colonizers…
- New Books in African American Studies
Strung Up: How White America Learned to Lynch Black Children with Stacey Patton (Beacon Press, 2026)
A powerful, unsettling, and unflinching exploration that forces readers to confront lynching as a devastating legacy of white childhood conditioning, and to…
- New Books in African American Studies
Racist by Design: Two Centuries of U.S. Immigration Control with Kelly Lytle Hernández (Norton, 2026)
Kelly Lytle Hernández joins Michael Stauch to discuss how the US immigration system has always been “racist by design.” Many Americans’ understanding of the…
- New Books in African American Studies
Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing with Rahim Kurwa (U California Press, 2025)
In this episode, Lilyanna D'Amato speaks with Rahim Kurwa about his book Indefensible Spaces: Policing and the Struggle for Housing (U California Press…
- New Books in African American Studies
Let the Oppressed Go Free: Abolitionism in Colonial and Revolutionary America with Nicholas P. Wood (U Pennsylvania Press, 2025)
David N. Gellman interviews Nicholas P. Wood on Let the Oppressed Go Free: Abolitionism in Colonial and Revolutionary AmericaIn Let the Oppressed Go Free…
- New Books in African American Studies
How Bright the Path Grows: The Untold Story of the Women Who Made the March on Washington with Marcia Chatelain
There is no shortage of footage immortalizing the men who spoke at the 1963 March on Washington for Jobs and Freedom, when 250,000 Americans gathered beneath…
- New Books in African American Studies
Apocalyptic Abolitionism: How Millennialists Helped Abolish Slavery and Reform America with Kevin M. Burton (NYU Press, 2026)
Shows how apocalypticism helped drive anti-slavery abolitionism and inspire progressive social reform in nineteenth-century America In March 1844, Melissa…
- New Books in African American Studies
Tess Chakkalakal, "A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt" (St. Martin's Press, 2025)
In A Matter of Complexion: The Life and Fictions of Charles W. Chesnutt (St. Martin's Press, 2025), Tess Chakkalakal gives readers the first comprehensive…
- New Books in African American Studies
Randal Maurice Jelks, "My America: Langston Hughes on Democracy" (Broadleaf Books, 2026)
Celebrated poet, essayist, playwright, and American artist Langston Hughes is one of the few American writers who consistently wrote about democracy from a…
- New Books in African American Studies
Bryant Simon, "For Customers Only: Public Bathrooms and the Making of American Inequality" (U Chicago Press, 2026)
Americans have nowhere to go. Nationwide, countless public spaces lack one crucial thing: bathrooms, never mind ones that are safe and functional. Yet in the…
- New Books in African American Studies
Catherine A John, "Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice" (Duke UP, 2026)
In Afroindigenization: A Theory of Grassroots Cultural Practice (Duke University Press, 2026), Catherine A. John addresses the underbelly of spiritual…
- New Books in African American Studies
Justin Ellen, "Better Than Grandma's: Comfort Desserts We Grew Up Loving" (Rolling Pin Press, 2026)
We all love the desserts we grew up with-the ones tied to family, tradition, and the moments we remember most. But as much as we love those recipes, they don't…
- New Books in African American Studies
Samantha Barbas, "Hate Speech: The Legal and Cultural History of an American Dilemma" (U California Press, 2026)
The United States has no hate speech laws; hate speech is generally considered to be free speech under the First Amendment. In Hate Speech: The Legal and…
- New Books in African American Studies
R. Douglas Hurt, "The Country People: An Agricultural History of the American Revolution" (U Georgia Press, 2026)
Although historians have given considerable attention to the American Revolution, the agricultural history of the American War for Independence exists only in…
- New Books in African American Studies
Christopher Freeburg, "Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life" (Yale UP, 2026)
Today’s guest, Christopher Freeburg, is the author of Soul: A Brief History of Black Cultural Life (Yale University Press, 2026). This book explores the US…
- New Books in African American Studies
Patrick Griffin, "The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World" (Yale UP, 2023)
David Gellman interviews Patrick Griffin on The Age of Atlantic Revolution: The Fall and Rise of a Connected World The Age of Atlantic Revolution was a…
- New Books in African American Studies
Michelle Adams, "The Containment: Detroit, the Supreme Court, and the Battle for Racial Justice in the North " (FSG, 2025)
Winner of the MAAH Stone Book Award Winner of the 2025 Avern Cohn Award A New York Times Notable Book of 2025, A New Yorker Best Book of 2025 selection A…
- New Books in African American Studies
Lucas L. Johnson II, "Remembering Roots: How an American Classic Transformed the World" (Broadleaf Books, 2026)
As we approach the 50th anniversaries of Alex Haley’s Pulitzer Prize-winning novel Roots (1976) and its landmark television adaptation (1977), journalist and…
- New Books in African American Studies
Deirdre Mayer Dougherty, "Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George's County, Maryland" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Race and Place: School Desegregation in Prince George's County, Maryland (Rutgers University Press, 2025) considers the everyday experiences of community…
- New Books in African American Studies
Kamau Ware, "Battle in the Margins: Black Experiences in New York City During the American Revolution" (Black Gotham Experience)
While Lexington and Concord claim significance as the sites of the American Revolution’s opening battles, New York City’s geography, population density, and…
- New Books in African American Studies
Bernadette Ludwig, "Unwelcome Shores: Black Refugees in America" (Rutgers UP, 2025)
Unwelcome Shores: Black Refugees in America (Rutgers University Press, 2025) is an ethnographic study of the Liberian refugee community in Staten Island, New…
- New Books in African American Studies
Courtney Weikle‑Mills, "Sugarcoated Ethics: Children’s Literature and Atlantic Enslavement" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2026)
What if children’s literature was never as innocent as we imagine? In Sugarcoated Ethics: Children’s Literature and Atlantic Enslavement (Johns Hopkins…
- New Books in African American Studies
Honoree Fanonne Jeffers, "The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois" (HarperCollins, 2021)
In 2021, the NAACP Image Award-winning poet Honorée Fanonne Jeffers made her fiction debut with The Love Songs of W.E.B. DuBois, a magisterial epic of African…
- New Books in African American Studies
Ashanté M. Reese, "Gather: Black Food, Nourishment, and the Art of Togetherness" (W. W. Norton, 2026)
Food justice is defined as the understanding that our food system is unequal and that something needs to be done about it. But how can we create a world where…
- New Books in African American Studies
Nancy Folbre, "Making Care Work: Why Our Economy Should Put People First" (U California Press, 2026)
A bold critique of conventional economics that reveals why the time and money we devote to care work is vital to our economic future. Our economy is much…
- New Books in African American Studies
Beronda L. Montgomery, "When Trees Testify: Science, Wisdom, History, and America’s Black Botanical Legacy" (Henry Holt & Co.)
The histories of trees in America are also the histories of Black Americans. Pecan trees were domesticated by an enslaved African named Antoine; sycamore trees…
- New Books in African American Studies
Edward E. Andrews, "Newport Gardner's Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Early America" (Cornell UP, 2025)
Newport Gardner's Anthem: A Story of Slavery, Struggle, and Survival in Early America (Cornell UP, 2025) explores the remarkable life of Occramer Marycoo, an…
- New Books in African American Studies
Jarvis C. McInnis, "Afterlives of the Plantation: Plotting Agrarian Futures in the Global Black South" (Columbia UP, 2025)
Built on the grounds of a former cotton plantation, the Tuskegee Institute, founded by Booker T. Washington, offered agricultural and industrial education as…
- New Books in African American Studies
Christopher R. Rogers, "My City Need Something" (Common Notions, 2026)
Moving between word and image, the call-and-response collaboration between writer Christopher R. Rogers and photographer karim brown improvises a contemporary…
- New Books in African American Studies
David N. Gellman, "Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York" (Cornell UP, 2022)
Edward Blum interviews David N. Gellman on his book Liberty’s Chain: Slavery, Abolition, and the Jay Family of New York (Cornell UP, 2022). In Liberty's…
- New Books in African American Studies
Edlie Wong, "Empire, Race, and Print Culture in the Black Pacific" (Cambridge UP, 2026)
Empire, Race, and Print Culture in the Black Pacific (Cambridge University Press, 2026) is an Element which centers the 'Black Pacific' as a generative site…
- New Books in African American Studies
Blair L.M. Kelley, "Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days" (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026)
For more than 150 years, Black communities have gathered to honor freedom, resilience, and the ongoing struggle for true liberation. While Juneteenth has…
- New Books in African American Studies
Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel, "Seeking Freedom in Indian Country: Slavery, Sovereignty, and Resistance Within the Five Tribes, 1790–1861" (LSU Press, 2026)
Dr. Kristen Tegtmeier Oertel’s Seeking Freedom in Indian Country: Slavery, Sovereignty, and Resistance within the Five Tribes, 1790–1861 (LSU Press, 2026) is…
- New Books in African American Studies
Virginia McGee Richards, "The Inner Passage: An Untold Story of Black Resistance Along a Southern Waterway" (MIT Press, 2026)
Some of the earliest canals in colonial America, referred to as the Inner Passage, were constructed by enslaved people living in the Lowcountry of South…
- New Books in African American Studies
Grégory Pierrot, "Fantômes de la révolution noire: Une histoire culturelle transatlantique" (Ròt-Bò-Krik, 2026)
Black Power! A name with a ring to it on both sides of the Atlantic, taken as a sign of Black American rage incarnated by a few names: Malcolm X, Stokely…
- New Books in African American Studies
Maria Pinto, "Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival" (UNC Press, 2026)
In Fearless, Sleepless, Deathless: What Fungi Taught Me about Nourishment, Poison, Ecology, Hidden Histories, Zombies, and Black Survival (University of North…
- New Books in African American Studies
Khiara Bridges, "Expecting Inequity: How the Maternal Health Crisis Affects Even the Wealthiest Black Americans" (MIT Press, 2026)
An unsettling exploration of the persistence of racism in reproductive healthcare in the US—and why even affluent Black women are imperiled by substandard…
- New Books in African American Studies
Gayle F. Wald, "This Is Rhythm: Ella Jenkins, Children’s Music, and the Long Civil Rights Movement" (U Chicago Press, 2025)
Ella Jenkins (1924–2024) was one of the most influential musicians of the twentieth century, although many people have never heard of her. A pioneer in…
- New Books in African American Studies
Cécile Bishop, "Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World" (Duke UP, 2026)
What does Blackness look like? In Forms of Blackness: Race and Visibility in the French-Speaking World (Duke University Press, 2026), Cécile Bishop argues that…
- New Books in African American Studies
Peter C. Mancall, "Contested Continent: The Struggle for North America, c. 1000-1680" (Oxford UP, 2026)
In Contested Continent: The Struggle for America, c.1000-1680 (Oxford University Press, 2026), the newest installment of the acclaimed Oxford History of the…
- New Books in African American Studies
Daniel Rood, "In the Shadow of the Great House: A History of the Plantation in America" (Norton, 2026)
Dan Rood’s In the Shadow of the Great House (W.W. Norton & Co., 2026) is one of the first contemporary books to focus on the primary engine of slavery, race…
- New Books in African American Studies
Gullah-Geechee Diasporas: Knowledge, Culture, and Black Lowcountry Legacies
Gullah-Geechee Diasporas: Knowledge, Culture, and Black Lowcountry Legacies (University of South Carolina Press, 2026) counters romantic portrayals of…
- New Books in African American Studies
Stephen Robertson, "Harlem in Disorder: A Spatial History of How Racial Violence Changed in 1935" (Stanford UP, 2024)
The violence that spread across Harlem on the night of March 19, 1935 was the first large-scale racial disorder in the United States in more than a decade and…
- New Books in African American Studies
A.D. Carson, "Owning My Masters (Mastered): The Rhetorics of Rhymes & Revolutions" (U Michigan Press, 2026)
Owning My Masters (Mastered) is a digital archive of original rap music and spoken word poetry containing two volumes of music, an annotated timeline, videos…
- New Books in African American Studies
Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory
In Thy Will Be Done: George Washington's Legacy of Slavery and the Fight for American Memory (UNC Press, 2026), historian John Garrison Marks tells the story…
- New Books in African American Studies
Sharron Wilkins Conrad, "The Trinity: John F. Kennedy, Lyndon B. Johnson, and Civil Rights in African American Memory" (UNC Press, 2026)
A striking triptych once displayed in countless African American households, the Trinity typically features Jesus Christ, Martin Luther King Jr., and John F…
- New Books in African American Studies
Introducing Periodically: A UC Press Journals Podcast with Journals Director David Famiano
1. A complete list of University of California Press journals is available at UC Press Journals 2. Clare E. B. Cannon; Advancing sustainable transitions: A…
- New Books in African American Studies
Where Harlem Rests at the Woodlawn Cemetery
A cemetery as open-air museum? Historian and award-winning author of Boss of the Grips: The Life of James H. Williams and the Red Caps of Grand Central…
- New Books in African American Studies
Shelley Fisher Fishkin, "Jim: The Life and Afterlives of Huckleberry Finn’s Comrade" (Yale UP, 2025)
Mark Twain’s Jim, introduced in Adventures of Huckleberry Finn (1885), is a shrewd, self‑aware, and enormously admirable enslaved man, one of the first fully…
- New Books in African American Studies
Blair LM Kelley, "Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days" (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026)
Black Freedom: A Visual History of Juneteenth and Emancipation Days (Black Dog & Leventhal, 2026) is the first fully illustrated history of Juneteenth and…
- New Books in African American Studies
Youssef J. Carter, "The Vast Oceans: Remembering Allah and Self on the Mustafawiyya Sufi Path" (UNC Press, 2026)
Youssef J. Carter’s The Vast Oceans: Remembering Allah and Self on the Mustafawiyya Sufi Path (UNC Press, 2026) is a stunning meditation on Black Atlantic…
- New Books in African American Studies
Anna O. Law, "Migration and the Origins of American Citizenship: African Americans, Native Americans, and Immigrants" (Oxford UP, 2026)
Anna O. Law, the Herbert Kurz Chair in Constitutional Rights in the Department of Political Science at City University of New York-Brooklyn Campus, has a…
- New Books in African American Studies
Joe P. L. Davidson, "Saving Utopia: Imagining Hopeful Futures in Dystopian Times" (MIT Press, 2026)
There is no alternative. The End of History. Climate Apocalypse. It seems that our contemporary moment is defined by the idea that things can only get worse…
- New Books in African American Studies
Robert Suits, "The Hobo: A History of America's First Climate Migrants" (Princeton UP, 2026)
From the mid-nineteenth century through the dust bowl years of the Great Depression, a new kind of migrant worker became a familiar sight in communities across…
- New Books in African American Studies
Stephanie Coontz, "For Better and Worse: The Complicated Past and Challenging Future of Marriage" (Viking, 2026)
Marriage rates have fallen dramatically since the 1970s. Yet far from devaluing marriage, people still overwhelmingly describe marriage as the highest…
- New Books in African American Studies
Bruce Dearstyne, "Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change" (SUNY Press, 2026)
Revolutionary New York: 250 Years of Social Change (SUNY Press, 2026), edited by Bruce Dearstyne and published by SUNY Press, examines what the volume calls…
- New Books in African American Studies
Javier Arbona-Homar, "Explosivity: Following What Remains" (U Minnesota Press, 2025)
Offering a novel approach to contemporary landscape studies, Explosivity: Following What Remains (U Minnesota Press, 2025) unearths the hidden legacies of…
- New Books in African American Studies
Terese Mason Pierre, "As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative Stories" (Spiderline, 2025)
In this NBN episode, host Hollay Ghadery speaks with editor, poet, and author, Terese Mason Pierre about As the Earth Dreams: Black Canadian Speculative…
- New Books in African American Studies
Allyson Nadia Field, "Acts of Love: Black Performance and the Kiss That Changed Film History" (U California Press, 2026)
In 1898, vaudeville actors Saint Suttle and Gertie Brown joyously embraced in a short silent film titled Something Good—Negro Kiss. The first known film to…