New Books in African American Studies

Debra Thompson, in her award-winning* book The Schematic State: Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census (Cambridge University Press, 2016), explores the complexities of the politics of the census. This book, which unpacks the census itself, leads the reader to consider how this mundane tool actually translates the abstraction of the state into a concrete entity, and, at the same time, how this tool has been and is used in contradictory ways in regard to the issue of race. Thompson, in exploring the census, contextualizes her analysis within three case studies: the United States, Canada, and the United Kingdom. She examines these cases over the course of more than 200 years of history and data, and she traces the shifts and changes in terms of racial categorization on the census, noting the fluid nature of understandings of race as applied to the citizen body in each of these countries, and how race was made legible by the census. The Schematic State also digs into the state, how it makes use of the data that is gleaned from the census, and what these uses suggest in terms of the instrument of the census. This book will be of interest to a variety of scholars and lay people, since the text and the research knit together different fields within and beyond political science, including comparative politics, critical race studies, critical legal studies, political theory, public policy, institutional political development, and statistical studies.*Winner, 2017 Race and Comparative Politics Best Book Award, Race, Ethnicity and Politics Section, American Political Science Association. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

If you read a lot of nonfiction, you may be familiar with what some call the “memoir quandary”—the complaint that memoir and autobiography are too narrowly focused on the writer’s life to be of real interest to anyone but themselves. To avoid this criticism, many nonfiction writers attempt to achieve greater relatability and universality in their writing. But is this appeal really more desirable than the art of telling a good story? While there’s nothing wrong with seeking common ground, one of the magical qualities of writing is how it can not only transport the reader to new places and experiences, but also introduce them to perspectives they might not have considered before.As a recent entry in the University of Nebraska Press’ award-winning American Lives Series, Micah McCrary’s Island in the City (2018) challenges us to consider both personal and political implications of one man’s life experiences through intimately intersectional prose. As a black and queer-identifying man, McCrary examines these identities through keen exploration of gender, sexuality, race, class, geography, and more in order to comment on the simultaneous singularity and ubiquity of human experience. Though McCrary is careful to note that his is an autobiography of one man, and that he can speak for no one but himself, Island in the City is nevertheless a radical exercise in empathetic connection.Today on New Books in Literature, join us as we sit down with author Micah McCrary to hear more about Island in the City, available now from the University of Nebraska Press (2018).Zoë Bossiere is a doctoral student at Ohio University, where she studies creative nonfiction and teaches writing classes. For more NBn interviews, follow her on Twitter @zoebossiereor head to zoebossiere.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

The story of Emmett Till’s death at the hands of white Mississippians is well known. For many Americans, it highlights the racism of the Jim Crow South and was a defining moment that helped galvanize a generation of civil rights leaders. In his new book, Elliott J. Gorn (Professor of History at Loyola University Chicago) tells the story of Till’s life and death. The death and trial was a national and international news story, but the exact meaning of events in Mississippi were contested. Moreover, the horrific images of Till’s badly beaten body were published in black publications at a time of a segregated media landscape. Most white Americans did not see them until decades later. In Let the People See: The Story of Emmett Till (Oxford University Press, 2018), Gorn also tells this story of the story of Till’s death—examining how responses to the death varied across the population and showing how public memory of Till’s murder has changed over the intervening years.In this episode of the podcast, Gorn discusses Till’s life, death, and legacy. He explains what happened and how it was received at the time. He also discusses why Till’s death drew so much attention, and how that attention fit into the larger historical context. He touches on why his death feels especially timely today. Finally, he discusses the experience of researching the book.Christine Lamberson is an Associate Professor of History at Angelo State University. Her research and teaching focuses on 20th century U.S. political and cultural history. She’s currently working on a book manuscript about the role of violence in shaping U.S. political culture in the 1960s and 1970s. She can be reached at clamberson@angelo.edu. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

At this point, it is hard to fathom the shear volume of studies of American slavery that scholars have produced. And new works on American slavery are being published at a remarkable clip. As a result, writing a new synthesis of this scholarship is a monumental feat.  Dr. Calvin Schermerhorn, however, has taken done the job, and wonderfully. His new book Unrequited Toil: A History of United States Slavery (Cambridge University Press, 2018) weaves the history of slavery into that of the United States from the founding of the nation to the Reconstruction era.Adam McNeil is PhD student in History at the University of Delaware where he is an African American Public Humanities Initiative and Colored Conventions Project Scholar. He received his M.A. in History at Simmons College in 2018 and his B.S. in History at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 2015. Follow him @CulturedModesty on Twitter to learn more about upcoming interviews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Scholarly interest in the institution of American slavery is enjoying a kind of resurgence. Researchers are examining heretofore rarely (or never) studied aspects of slavery. One such new frontier is the history of sexuality and slavery. Two scholars at the forefront movement are Drs. Daina Ramey Berry and Leslie Harris. Drs. Berry and Harris’s recent edited volume, Sexuality and Slavery: Reclaiming Intimate Histories in the Americas (University of Georgia Press, 2018), brings together a variety of scholars working on the ways in which slavery and sexuality interacted, and whose efforts combine to show that sexuality was in some ways more central to the history of slavery in the Americas than has been thought.Adam McNeil is PhD student in History at the University of Delaware where he is an African American Public Humanities Initiative and Colored Conventions Project Scholar. He received his M.A. in History at Simmons College in 2018 and his B.S. in History at Florida Agricultural and Mechanical University in 2015. Follow him @CulturedModesty on Twitter to learn more about upcoming interviews. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

In his most new book Fight the Power: African Americans and the Long History of Police Brutality in New York City (NYU Press, 2018), Clarence Taylor, dean of the history of the civil rights movement in New York, looks at black resistance to police brutality in the city, and institutional efforts to hold the NYPD accountable, since the late 1930s and '40s.​“Many people think that police brutality is a recent phenomenon,” says Taylor, professor emeritus at Baruch College and The Graduate Center of City University of New York. But, in fact, it has a long, sordid history, going back even further than the years covered in this new book. And long before the era of cellphones, black newspapers did their own investigations when men, women, and children were beaten or killed by the police. (Louis Lomax, the first African-American journalist to appear regularly on television news, commented in the early 1960s that, if not for police brutality, the black press would have "considerable blank space.")Taylor also looks at the history of the Civilian Complaint Review Board, first proposed after the Harlem riots of 1935 and 1943. La Guardia and the mayors who followed refused to challenge the NYPD’s power, which is why it took nearly fifty years to establish an independent public agency to investigate allegations of abuse. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

The field of African American intellectual history is enjoying a kind of renaissance at the moment. The resurgence is due to the work of the African American Intellectual History Society (AAIHS) and its terrific blog Black Perspectives. The fruits of the AAIHS's labors can be seen in the book we're discussing today: New Perspectives of the Black Intellectual Tradition(Northwestern University Press, 2018). Its editors--Keisha N. Blain, Christopher Cameron, and Ashley D. Farmer--have collected insightful essays ranging across the entire African Diaspora from the leading scholars of Black intellectual history. Listen in as we talk to one of them, Ashley Farmer.Adam McNeil is a PhD Student in the Department of History at the University of Delaware. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

Robin Marie Averbeck is a writer, activist and teacher at California State University, Chico. Liberalism is not Enough: Race and Poverty in Postwar Political Thought (The University of North Carolina Press, 2018) is a historical examination of postwar liberalism that powerfully shows how racist capitalism is at the heart of liberal thought. Through ideological laden invocation of pluralism, the “culture of poverty,” and faith in the workings of democratic institutions, liberals shared with conservatives support for an individualistic and racist social order. Demonstrating concern for poverty embodied in the vision of the Great Society, liberals attempted to effectively deny the issue of race for African Americans. Attention to poverty turned to finding an explanation in the pathological makeup of poor blacks and in the overarching “culture of poverty” that became identified with urban environments. After supporting Civil Rights legislation and Community Action Programs funded by the federal government, liberal thinkers were able to deny structural racism and capitalist inequality setting fire to radical resistance. The liberal ideology of white supremacy continues to manifest itself in mass incarceration of African Americans and the weakening of the welfare state. Averbeck demonstrates how the failure to confront the political and social structures that produce inequality stand in the way of true liberation for all Americans.This episode of New Books in American Studies was produced in cooperation with the Society for U.S. Intellectual History.Lilian Calles Barger is a cultural, intellectual and gender historian. Her current book is entitled The World Come of Age: An Intellectual History of Liberation Theology (Oxford University Press, 2008). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

At a speech before the unveiling of the Freedman’s Monument in 1876, Fredrick Douglass stated, “You are the children of Abraham Lincoln. We are only at best his step-children; children by adoption, children of circumstances and necessity.” But who was Douglass referring to when he said "You are the children of Abraham Lincoln" and what did he mean? Dr. William Green investigates this statement in a case-study of four whites from Minnesota who fought hard and won rights for black Americans during and after the Civil War. By evaluating the actions of Morton Wilkinson, Thomas Montgomery, Daniel D. Merrill, and Sarah Burger Stearns, Dr. Green shows how black suffrage was earned in Minnesota, leading the so-called children of Lincoln to say, “We have done our part.” The Children of Lincoln: White Paternalism and the Limits of Black Opportunity in Minnesota, 1860–1876(University of Minnesota Press, 2018) is a fascinating, well-researched book about the limits of black opportunity in Minnesota with remarkable parallels to today’s social and political climate.Dr. William Green is professor of history at Augsburg University and vice president of the Minnesota Historical Society. Dr. Green received his B.A. in History from Gustavus Adolphus College, and his M.A., Ph.D., and J.D. from the University of Minnesota.Colin Mustful has a M.A. in history from Minnesota State University, Mankato, and is currently a candidate for a M.F.A. in Creative Writing from Augsburg University. You can learn more about his work at his website: www.colinmustful.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies

The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is one of the great animating foreign policy issues of the twenty-first century, one that provokes fierce divisions across the world. In the United States, the issue has become increasingly politicized in recent decades. While the conflict is not a strict binary issue, varying degrees and kinds of support for the Palestinians has become increasingly normalized among certain groups in the United States. One group that tends to profess sympathy with and support for Palestinians far more commonly than the average is African Americans. Links between the two groups are strong. For example, in 2016 Black Lives Matter released a statement critical of Israel; perhaps unsurprisingly, its use of the terms “genocide” and “apartheid” triggered a backlash among other progressive and Jewish-American groups.Michael Fischbach’s Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color(Stanford University Press, 2018) examines the history of African American ties to Palestine. Fischbach begins with Malcolm X’s interactions with Palestinians and his criticism of Zionism in the early 1960s. The writing of Frantz Fanon and others drew Black Power activists to Palestine, beginning with the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee’s public statements on Israel. Fischbach uses the furor over that to illuminate the position of moderate groups such as the NAACP, supporters of Israel such as Bayard Rustin, and more radical groups such as the Black Panthers. Fischbach shows that despite pushback from Jewish-American groups, a consensus emerged that drew links between African Americans and Palestinians as people of color facing similar problems.Zeb Larson is a PhD Candidate in History at The Ohio State University. His research is about the anti-apartheid movement in the United States. To suggest a recent title or to contact him, please send an e-mail to zeb.larson@gmail.com. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoicesSupport our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/african-american-studies