Nellie Y. McKay, a champion for Black women’s voices in modern literature, was also a scholar with an extraordinary path to academia in the late 60’s, early 70’s. Many personal details of her life were not known until after her passing away in 2006, even to some of her closest colleagues. McKay rewrote the narrative […]
Black women have always found ways to resist in the midst of a savage system of slavery and oppression that used intimacy as a means of undermining freedom. Surrounded by this hostile social order, what were some of the ways Black women carved out for themselves moments of freedom & empowerment? Left of Black host […]
Must the Black past always be a revision of racial trauma? Or is there more to the story of the African-Americans experience and the culture that has been built from it? Left of Black host and Duke University Prof. Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Prof. Badia Ahad-Legardy, Vice Provost for Faculty Affairs at Loyola […]
What is the interesting, yet too little explored, intersection between the golden age of jazz and Islam in the African American community? How did one inform and influence the other? Dr. Richard Brent Turner joined Prof. Mark Anthony Neal to discuss his latest book, Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism, […]
What is a Black gaze? Does it merely imply a world view held conjointly by those of African descent? Or is it a way of seeing that forces us to confront Blackness and anti-Blackness and our relationship with both? Who are the Black artists that are pushing boundaries to embrace a broader understanding of the […]
We all know the importance of Black artists at pointing to what’s wrong with our world through poignant critique or presenting a celebration of Black joy in their work. But what about the role of the Black curator in amplifying the voice of our artists to give them a space to display their most provocative […]
Left of Black embarks on its twelfth season, amid the pandemic, to bring you conversations with the foremost minds in Black Studies from across academia and beyond. On this episode, host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by one of the foremost public scholars of our time: Dr. Michael Eric Dyson, who discusses […]