The New York Times-bestselling, National Book Award-nominated author of The Love Songs of W.E.B. Du Bois and The Age of Phillis makes her nonfiction debut with this personal and thought-provoking work that explores the journeys and possibilities of Black women throughout American history and in contemporary times.
Honorée Fanonne Jeffers is at a crossroads. ... Show More
Yesterday
Nick Spencer, "The Landscapes of Science and Religion: What Are We Disagreeing About?" (Oxford UP, 2025)
The relationship between science and religion has long been a heated debate and is becoming an ever more popular topic. The scientific capacity to manipulate and change humans and their environment through genetic engineering, life extension, and AI is going to take a huge leap f ... Show More
38m 48s
Aug 20
Todd Mcgowan, "Pure Excess: Capitalism and the Commodity" (Columbia UP, 2024)
Todd McGowan forges a new theory of capitalism as a system based on the production of more than what we need: pure excess. He argues that the promise of more—more wealth, more enjoyment, more opportunity, without requiring any sacrifice—is the essence of capitalism. Previous soci ... Show More
1h 5m
Jul 2023
Brianna Holt, "In Our Shoes: On Being a Young Black Woman in Not-So 'Post-Racial' America" (Plume Books, 2023)
Part memoir, part cultural critique, In Our Shoes: On Being a Young Black Woman in Not-So 'Post-Racial' America (Plume Books, 2023) uses pop culture and author Brianna Holt’s own lived experience to dissect the stereotypes and preconceived notions that young Black women must over ... Show More
43m 17s
Aug 2024
Tisha Brooks, "Spirit Deep: Recovering the Sacred in Black Women’s Travel" (U Virginia Press, 2023)
What would it mean for American and African American literary studies if readers took the spirituality and travel of Black women seriously? With Spirit Deep: Recovering the Sacred in Black Women’s Travel (U Virginia Press, 2023), Tisha Brooks addresses this question by focusing o ... Show More
37m 23s
May 4
Aaron Robertson, "The Black Utopians: Searching for Paradise and the Promised Land in America" (FSG, 2024)
How do the disillusioned, the forgotten, and the persecuted not merely hold on to life but expand its possibilities and preserve its beauty? What, in other words, does utopia look like in black? These questions animate Aaron Robertson’s exploration of Black Americans' efforts to ... Show More
54m 58s
Jul 2020
Emily Wallace, "Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South" (U Texas Press, 2019)
In this this interview, Carrie Tippen talks with Emily Wallace, author and illustrator of the new book Road Sides: An Illustrated Companion to Dining and Driving in the American South (University of Texas Press, 2019).Road Sides pays homage to popular travel guides with its short ... Show More
50m 1s
Mar 2023
Damien M. Sojoyner, "Joy and Pain: A Story of Black Life and Liberation in Five Albums" (U California Press, 2022)
This highly original story reflects on how the carceral state shapes daily life for young Black people--and how Black Americans resist, find joy, and cultivate new visions for the future. Joy and Pain: A Story of Black Life and Liberation in Five Albums (University of California ... Show More
1h 18m
Nov 2023
Sharony Green, "The Chase and Ruins: Zora Neale Hurston in Honduras" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2023)
Zora Neale Hurston, an anthropologist and writer best known for her classic novel Their Eyes Were Watching God, led a complicated life often marked by tragedy and contradictions. When both she and her writing fell out of favor after the Harlem Renaissance, she struggled not only ... Show More
1h 10m
Aug 2023
Karima K. Jeffrey-Legette, "Speculative Film and Moving Images by or about Black Women and Girls" (Lexington Books, 2022)
Karima K. Jeffrey-Legette's book Speculative Film and Moving Images by or about Black Women and Girls (Lexington Books, 2022) examines depictions of African-descended women and girls in twentieth and twenty-first century filmmaking. Topics include a discursive analysis of stereot ... Show More
1h 48m
May 2016
Brooke Hauser, “Enter Helen: The Invention of Helen Gurley Brown and the Rise of the Modern Single Woman”
“Women’s history, if they had any, consisted in their being beautiful enough to become events in male lives,” the feminist academic Carolyn R. Heilbrun noted in a series of 1997 lectures, suggesting the need for new narratives and new ways of writing women’s lives.
Brooke Hauser‘ ... Show More
48m 25s
Aug 2023
Long Reads: Simone de Beauvoir's Socialist Feminism w/ Emma McNicol
When Simone de Beauvoir died in 1986, French TV news described her as a “symbol of women’s liberation,” but they couldn’t resist bracketing her name with that of Jean-Paul Sartre, her lifelong partner. Almost four decades later, Beauvoir’s reputation as a pioneering feminist thin ... Show More
44m 15s