This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Robin Means Coleman, Professor of Media Studies and of African American and African Studies at the University of Virginia where she is also Director of the Black Fantastic Media Research Lab. In addition to a number of scholarly and popular essays, she is the author of Horror Noire: A History of Black American Horror from the 1890s to Present, published as a second edition in 2023, and,] African American Viewers and the Black Situation Comedy: Situating Racial Humor, published in 2000. She is co-author of The Black Guy Dies First: Black Horror from Fodder to Oscar (2023) and Intercultural Communication for Everyday Life (2014). She is the editor of Say It Loud! African American Audiences, Media, and Identity (2002) and co-editor of both The Oxford Handbook of Black Horror Film (2024) and Fight the Power! The Spike Lee Reader (2008). In this conversation, we discuss the dynamic character of Black Studies in relation to community-campus relations, the political nature of research and teaching, and the complex relationship between Black Studies and study focused on Black topics

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Jervette R. Ward, who teaches in and chairs the newly re-established Department of Black Studies at The City College of New York. In addition to her writing and editing work on African American literature and popular culture, she serves as president of the College Language Association. In this conversation, we discuss the relationship between Black studies and literature, how the past struggles to establish the field inform ongoing Black liberation struggle, and how the past and future of Black Studies engages with community life and its everyday habits, objects, and complex practices.

This is Ashley Newby and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today's episode features Rita Kiki Edozie, the Deval Patrick Endowed Chair of Political, Economic, and Social Innovation and Professor of Global Governance at the University of Massachusetts-Boston. She is the university’s former interim Dean of the John W McCormack School of Policy and Global Studies. Her recent books, The African Union’s Africa: New Pan-African Initiatives in Global Governance (2014) and Pan-Africa Rising: The Cultural Political Economy of Nigeria’s Afri-capitalism and South Africa’s Ubuntu Business (2017), and Africa’s New Global Politics: Regionalism in International Relations (with Moses Khisa, 2022).

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Juanita Stephen, who teaches in the Department of Interdisciplinary and Critical Studies at University of Windsor in Windsor, Ontario. Her research is guided by feminist theory and its methodologies, draws on the insights of care practice and community work, and is focused on questions of gender, families, and children in a Black Studies frame. In this conversation, we discuss the relationship between Black study and care, how childhood and care networks inform theory and writing, and how the past and future of Black Studies engages with community life and its everyday practices.

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Philip McHarris, who teaches in the Frederick Douglass Institute and Department of Black Studies at University of Rochester. In addition to numerous scholarly and public facing essays, he is the author of Beyond Policing (2024) and is completing a book manuscript titled Brick Dreams, to be published by Princeton University Press. In this conversation, we discuss the urgency of the study of policing and mass incarceration for Black Studies, the politics of thinking expansively about Black study, and the transformative work that comes from teaching and imagining from a space of Black liberation struggle.

This is Ashley Newby and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today's conversation is with Dawn-Elissa Fischer, who teaches in the Department of Anthropology at San Francisco State University. She centers her scholarly endeavors around the thematic core of "Representing the Unseen." For over two decades, ethnographic research has been her pathway to navigating the frontlines of social movements and Black entertainment, unearthing narratives obscured from view, exposing both the unnoticed struggles and triumphs. Her work intricately illuminates the dynamic digital worlds of today’s youth, weaving stories from underground emcees, grassroots organizers, cosplay vloggers, gaming influencers, and other digital creators into a cohesive narrative of an ongoing online revolution. Beyond exploration, the thematic framework of "Representing the Unseen" serves as a lens to acknowledge and elevate historically excluded educators' intellectual and social justice contributions in critical pedagogy and public engagement. With meticulous evaluation spanning K-12 and postsecondary education since 1999, Fischer's commitment remains steadfast to shedding light on hidden narratives and fostering inclusivity within academia and broader societal contexts.

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Neil Roberts, Associate Dean of the Faculty and Professor of Africana Studies at Williams College. Along with numerous articles in academic journals, he is the author of Freedom as Marronage (2015) and editor or co-editor of Creolizing Rousseau (2014), Journeys in Caribbean Thought (2016), and A Political Companion to Frederick Douglass (2018). In this conversation, we discuss the place in Caribbean history and thought in Black Studies, the complexity of thinking freedom in the Black Atlantic world, and the challenges that have come with the institutionalization of the field.

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Donelle Boose, who teaches in the Department of History and African American Studies Program at Randolph-Macon College in Ashland, Virginia. She is an historian who works between public history, archival research, and Black Studies sensibilities. In this conversation, we discuss the relation between public facing work and Black study, documentation and evidence in popular and academic historical writing, and the transformative nature of the Black Studies classroom.