About the Show
The longest-running web series at Duke University, Left of Black has been the premiere platform to highlight the important work of scholars, artists, and activists who have furthered thought and knowledge production around the increasingly essential subject of Black Studies and its relevance to university pedagogy and the world-at-large.
"I have always greatly admired Mark Anthony Neal’s Left of Black series, and am very happy that we are now working with him closely at FHI"
Ranjana Khanna, Director of the John Hope Franklin Institute
Black Studies for a Mobile Digital Network
Left of Black is the Webby Award-nominated web series featuring interviews with Black Studies scholars created and hosted by James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies Mark Anthony Neal. From 2010-2020, it was produced by the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Global Studies. In 2020, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute (FHI) took over production, with funding support from Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
“I think where the humanities are at this moment nationally, where the humanities are at Duke, it is important for humanities-minded entities to begin to pool resources and collaborate in support of the value of the humanities," said Mark Anthony Neal. "For me, there was no one entity at Duke that was more committed to that work than the Franklin Humanities Institute."
"I have always greatly admired Mark Anthony Neal’s Left of Black series, and am very happy that we are now working with him closely at FHI," said FHI Director Ranjana Khanna.
"it is important for humanities-minded entities to begin to pool resources and collaborate in support of the value of the humanities"
Host and James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies, Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
She continues, "The series is a deep engagement with the body of work produced in Black Studies over the last ten years: scholarship and art that has shaped the humanities more broadly and equipped our fields with the important analytical frameworks so essential today. African and African American Studies and FHI used to be neighbors in the John Hope Franklin Center. It’s good to be in proximity again and in conversation with the rigorous standard set for both Black Studies and the humanities more broadly by John Hope Franklin."
"The series is a deep engagement with the body of work produced in Black Studies over the last ten years: scholarship and art that has shaped the humanities..."
FHI Director and Professor of English, Literature, and Women’s Studies at Duke University, Dr. Ranjana Khanna
Once it was established at the institute, FHI's Multimedia Director Eric Barstow took on the mantle of director-producer for the series while also working as the primary video editor. “Dr. Neal is an absolute luminary in his field and a fantastic interviewer, going beyond superficial conversation to give each guest a platform to shine and share their work and research. I am honored to be a part of this special show,” he shared. Barstow earned his Master's in Fine Arts degree in Duke’s Experimental & Documentary Arts program in 2013.
Now the series is about to embark on its fifteenth season, a tremendous feat as it has served as a consistent bullhorn to amplify the indispensable research and writing of Black academics on their recently published work. Of his time knowing host Mark Anthony Neal, Dr. E. Patrick Johnson, Dean of the School of Communication at Northwestern University, stated, "Left of Black has promoted the careers of a generation of ‘Blackademics.’"
"Dr. Neal is an absolute luminary in his field and a fantastic interviewer, going beyond superficial conversation to give each guest a platform to shine and share their work and research."
Series Director-Producer and FHI Multimedia Director, Eric Barstow, M.F.A.
Dr. Johnson continues, "Every time I have appeared on the show has been a blessing. Mark Anthony Neal (or “MAN,” as we know him), is a brilliant interlocutor who can get down with the theory heads as well as the house heads and not miss a beat! Every episode is sheer joy and enlightenment."
The future looks bright for Left of Black as Dr. Neal will now regularly teach a new course for undergraduates to take, "Black Popular Culture: From Black Twitter to Left of Black," every Spring semester at Duke University.
Mark Anthony Neal is the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African & African American Studies and Chair of the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University where he offers courses on Black Masculinity, Popular Culture, and Digital Humanities, including signature courses on Michael Jackson & the Black Performance Tradition, and The History of Hip-Hop, which he co-teaches with Grammy Award Winning producer 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit).
He is the author of several books including What the Music Said: Black Popular Music and Black Public Culture (1999), Soul Babies: Black Popular Culture and the Post-Soul Aesthetic (2002) and Looking for Leroy: Illegible Black Masculinities (2013). The 10th Anniversary edition of Neal’s New Black Man was published in February of 2015 by Routledge. Neal is co-editor of That's the Joint: The Hip-Hop Studies Reader (Routledge), now in its second edition.
"The crisis of the musical archive is that...we have people writing about Black culture who have no depth of knowledge about Black culture." -Dr. Mark Anthony Neal
Dr. Neal's new book, Black Ephemera: The Crisis and Challenge of the Musical Archive (2022), touches on the crisis faced by the archive of Black music in the face of the digital age we are in, and what it stands to lose if not cared for correctly.
You can follow him on X at @NewBlackMan and IG at @BookerBBBrown.
Eric Barstow, M.F.A.
Eric Barstow graduated from Duke’s own MFA in Experimental & Documentary Arts program, having been a part of the first graduating class. It was during his time as a graduate student that he started working at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute to produce their video content. Since then, Eric has directed, recorded, and edited the content on FHI's YouTube channel, along with assisting in the management of FHI various social media platforms. He earned his BA in Theater/Film from Saint Augustine’s University in Raleigh. He is the winner of the Silver Telly Award, the Bronze Davey Award, and won Best Short Doc Award at the Urban Mediamakers Film Festival in Atlanta, GA. Eric also worked as an adjunct professor at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke and the School of Communications at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
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What's the Word on Left of Black?
Left of Black has promoted the careers of a generation of ‘Blackademics.’ Every time I have appeared on the show has been a blessing. Mark Anthony Neal is a brilliant interlocutor who can get down with the theory heads as well as the house heads and not miss a beat! Every episode is sheer joy and enlightenment.
Dean, School of Communication, Northwestern University
[Host] Mark Anthony Neal brought a high level of care and empathy to our conversation, making it easier for me to talk about such difficult topics as race, fatherhood, and masculinity. Our conversation, as well as questions and comments from the very tuned-in audience, reframed the way I think and talk about these topics now.
Founder & Music Executive, Sonic Boom Records | Host, Identified podcast
I’ve been a longtime viewer of Left of Black––from its very beginning in 2010. I was a new professor starting my first job at Muhlenberg College. As the only Black faculty, Left of Black was incredibly important to connect me with a wide range of Black Studies scholars who were engaged in a variety of different topics. It allowed me to then figure out where my research fit in a larger ecosystem of Black Studies.
Associate Professor of Africana Studies, Brown University