New Host Announcement for Award-Winning “Left of Black” Series

DURHAM, NC — July 27, 2026 — The longest running web series out of Duke University has a new host, Dr. Christopher Ouma, for its seventeenth season on YouTube!“Stepping into this new role is both humbling and exhilarating! I am excited to have new conversations from emerging voices in the field of Black Studies. The history of this series leaves such big shoes to fill,” said Prof. Ouma.“Left of Black,” known widely as the premiere platform for stimulating conversations with Black Studies scholars and artists alike, started in the basement of the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke by Prof. Mark Anthony Neal in the fall of 2010. More than twenty years into his tenure at the university, Dr. Neal was elected as Chair of Duke’s Academic Council, the faculty senate that represents the university’s dozen schools and colleges. Neal acknowledged the elevated level of responsibility he has now assumed.“This new role demands a heightened level of focus as it addresses so much of academic life at the university. And, after 15 years of hosting ‘Left of Black,’ it just felt like the right time for the show to take on a new vision and a fresh perspective going forward,” shared Neal, who approached Prof. Ouma to be his successor. “I always believed,” Neal added, “that the ‘Left of Black’ brand should be bigger than its host.”

 

Dr. Ouma came to Duke in 2023 as an Associate Professor of English and African and African American Studies from the University of Cape Town in South Africa. Born and raised in Kenya, Ouma’s research has been focused on contemporary African and African diasporic literature and the impact of small magazines on the continent’s pan-African artistic and political formations. He is eager to bring an African diasporic lens to conversations on the show.

“The series will move towards global blackness: a direction that the first 16 seasons have built a solid foundation for,” Ouma commented.

Ouma also co-directs the Black Archival Imagination Lab at the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute with Dr. Khwezi Mkhize, Assistant Professor of African & African American Studies.