Department of African & African-American Studies

01/22/2026

Who knew that when Left of Black gathered a group of thinkers to discuss the musical, spiritual, political and cinematic themes of back in May of 2025, that it would become the most nominated film in the history of the

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/Vampires walking through the Depression-era Mississippi Delta is the premise of director Ryan Coogler's breako...

06/29/2025

What does extensive empirical data show about the growing diversification of faith in the Black Church today? Dr. Jason E. Shelton, Director of the Center for African American Studies at the University of Texas at Arlington, discusses these ongoing changes among African Americans and what impact these have on broader social and political movements in his new book, 'The Contemporary Black Church: The New Dynamics of African American Religion' (NYU Press)

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/What does extensive empirical data show about the growing diversification of faith in the Black Church today? ...

06/20/2025

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ejYihGW28_0

In this clip, Tricia Rose reminds us that the effort to stigmatize words originally intended to support racial justice movements is not new. How should we re...

06/12/2025

Richard Brent Turner joined Left of Black to discuss his book, 'Soundtrack to a Movement: African American Islam, Jazz, and Black Internationalism' (NYU Press). Dr. Turner is the Professor of African American Religious History at University of Iowa.

Learn more about Left of Black here: https://fhi.duke.edu/programs/left-blackWhat is the interesting, yet too little explored, intersection between the golde...

05/27/2025

"most of the people, actually, all of the people who have "Excited Delirium" are considered to be fault or to blame for their own deaths. And of course, this syndrome becomes most widely disputed and recognized after the death of George Floyd, who was characterized as a potential "Excited Delirium" and "Excited Delirium Syndrome" was even used in Derek Chauvin's defense at the trial. And it's really not until the world sees the video of Floyd being knelt on that people realize that this is not a medical incident, which is what the Minneapolis Police Department had attempted to argue in the beginning." -- Aisha Beliso-De Jesus via Left of Black

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/At the dawn of the 1980's, the term "excited delirium" was created to medically explain why so many Black men ...

05/19/2025

On the Centennial of 's birth, Duke AAAS's Mark Anthony Neal offers a meditation on Malcolm X the for LEVEL.
:
Malcolm X the Girl Dad Was Hidden in Plain Sight

On the other side of the hardened activist was a man who stirred his coffee with his daughter's finger and told her it made it sweet

03/31/2025

Dr. Deondra Rose, the Kevin D. Gorter Associate Professor at The Sanford School of Public Policy at Duke joined me on Left of Black to discuss her new book, 'The Power of Black Excellence: HBCUs and the Fight for American Democracy' (Oxford University Press)

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/Historically Black Colleges & Universities (HBCU's) have been an integral part of the educational landscape of...

02/22/2025

"A revealing look at the covert and institutionalized racism lurking in the congressional workplace" -- Princeton University Press

James R. Jones, Associate Professor of Africana Studies and Sociology at Rutgers University-Newark, joins Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal to discuss his new book, 'The Last Plantation: Racism and Resistance in the Halls of Congress'

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/When voters think about Congress, they usually envision the politicians they elected working, often arguing, a...

02/19/2025

Join the Department of African & African American Studies at Duke University TOMORROW (2/20) for a look at & Critical University Studies with Davarian Baldwin, Kris Manjapra & Leigh-Ann Naidoo.

*Start Time 12:30 pm est
https://www.canva.com/design/DAGdgDhS1wM/u5G0JxT6un6RNvoYxEtKFA/view?utm_content=DAGdgDhS1wM&utm_campaign=designshare&utm_medium=link2&utm_source=uniquelinks&utlId=hb2ee6e15aa

02/19/2025

"It's not (just) slavery. It's also after slavery and Jim Crow and after Jim Crow. Right...what the attacks on the Civil Rights Movement, the anti-affirmative action, and where we are right now is all an extension of an adapting system, a monstrous adapting system."-- Tricia Rose via Left of Black

Full Episode:

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/What is the difference between experiencing racist acts versus contending with entire systems of compounded ra...

02/19/2025

The Sanctified Funk of Sly & the Family Stone | Mark Anthony Neal

One critic said the group was too hot and Black to be rock, too positive to be the Blues, and too wild to be Soul. Sly's group indeed lived in their own universe

One critic said the group was too hot and Black to be rock, too positive to be the Blues, and too wild to be Soul. Sly's group indeed lived in their own universe

12/16/2024

When then-journalist Joan Morgan got tired of explaining how hip-hop and feminism can co-exist, she decided to write her first book, "When Chickenheads Come Home to Roost: A Hip-Hop Feminist Breaks It Down." First printed in 2000! Her publication helped to define an entire new iteration of feminism that chose to reimagine the rap industry as a place where women could, not only stake their own claim, but also lead the discourse on gender equality and hip hop becoming a force for societal change.

Now, 25 years later, Morgan has gotten her Ph.D. and finds herself embedded in academia, an outcome she did not originally set out to accomplish. Dr. Joan Morgan joins her childhood friend, host Mark Anthony Neal, to unpack her writing practice over the years and how being a better writer makes one a better thinker overall.

Dive Into the Archive: https://leftofblack.org/When then-journalist Joan Morgan got tired of explaining how hip-hop and feminism can co-exist, she decided to...