Left of Black S3:E9 | Racial Passing and the Rise of Multiracialism

November 12, 2012

For many African Americans, the practice of ‘Passing’—where light-skinned Blacks could pass for White—remains a thing connected to a difficult racial past. In her new book, Clearly Invisible: Racial Passing and the Color of Cultural Identity (Baylor University Press), Marcia Dawkins, a professor in the Annenberg School of Communications at the University of Southern California provides a fresh take on the practice arguing that passing in the contemporary moment transcends racial performance.

Dawkins talks about her new book with Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, via Skype.  Neal is also joined by University of Washington Professor Habiba Ibrahim for part one of a two-part interview about her new book Troubling the Family: The Promise of Personhood and the Rise of Multiracialism (University of Minnesota Press) in which she links the rise of Multiracialism in the 1990s to the maintenance of traditional gender norms.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U

Left of Black S3:E7 |  Hip-Hop, Religion & The Black Church

October 29, 2012

Left of Black host and Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Monica R. Miller, Visiting Assistant Professor of Religious Studies at Lewis & Clark College and author of  Religion and Hip-Hop(Routledge, 2012);  Ebony Utley, Associate Professor of Communication Studies at California State University, Long Beach and  author Rap and Religion: Understanding The Gangsta’s God (Praeger 2012); and Emmett G. Price III, Associate Professor of Music and African-American Studies at Northeastern University and editor  The Black Church and Hip Hop Culture: Toward Bridging the Generational Divide (Scarecrow Press, 2012).

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U

Left of Black S3:E5 |  October 15, 2012

Style Shifting with POTUS & Occupying the Music

Left of Black host and Duke Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by Stanford University Professor H. Samy Alim, co-author of, with legendary social linguist Geneva Smitherman, Articulate While Black: Barack Obama, Language and Race in the U.S. (Oxford University Press).  Later Neal is joined, also via Skype, by singer-songwriter Alison Crockett, whose latest recording Mommy, What’s a Depression? and blog Diva Against Insanity harks back to the socially transformative music of the 1960s.

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Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

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Episodes of Left of Black are also available for free download in  @ iTunes U

The third season of Left of Black premieres September 17th, 2012. Join us on http://www.ustream.tv/leftofblack at 1:30pm, September 17th, 2012.

(Source: LoBSesaon3Promo)

What If Du Bois had Twitter? Trailer for Black Thought 2.0 Conference

Teaching “The Wire” and Remembering the Founding of Vibe Magazine on  the October 10^th Episode of Left of Black

On the October 10^th episode of Left of Black, host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Anne-Marie Makhulu, professor of Cultural Anthropology and African & African-American Studies at Duke University.  Professor Makhulu is currently teaching a class on the HBO series The Wire.  An expert on economics in South Africa, Makhulu compares and contrasts the urban American inner-city portrayed in The Wire with that of South African cities.  Makhulu talks about getting into the show after its final season and deciding to teach it to Duke students because of the story it tells about the decline of the American city.  She also looks at how the American dream portrayed in the series impacts public policy. Makhulu reveals her favorite characters, discusses her experiences teaching the show, and lastly keeps the audience up-to-date on her current projects regarding informal settlements in South Africa.  

Later, host Neal is joined by Scott Poulson Bryant, one of the founding editors of Vibe Magazine and author of the 2005 book Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America and the just published new novel The VIPs.  The two scholars speak to the book’s setting in Sag Harbor, a black elite leisure space in Long Island, New York comparable to Martha’s Vineyard.  The fiction writer talks about who he would cast in a movie version of The VIPs and what he was intending to offer his readers.   The Long Island bred author and journalist , who is currently enrolled in Harvard’s doctoral program in American Civilization, talks about the people and publications who influence his work.  Bryant, who crowned the name Vibe Magazine tells Left of Black about the impact of hip-hop and black popular culture on contemporary journalism.  

Left of Black airs at 1:30 p.m. (EST) on Mondays on Duke’s Ustream channel: ustream.tv/dukeuniversity. Viewers are invited to participate in a Twitter conversation with Neal and featured guests while the show airs using hash tags #LeftofBlack or #dukelive.  

Left of Black is recorded and produced at the John Hope Franklin Center of International and Interdisciplinary Studies at Duke University.

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Follow Left of Black on Twitter: @LeftofBlack

Follow Mark Anthony Neal on Twitter: @NewBlackMan

Follow Scott Poulson-Bryant on Twitter: @SPBVIP

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Left of Black launches its second season on Sept. 12 with scholar, author and pundit Michael Eric Dyson of Georgetown University.