By Department of African American Studies at Princeton University
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The podcast currently has 27 episodes available.
How do we look at, and respond to, work by Black contemporary artists? In this episode, we sat down with Tina Campt, Visiting Professor in Art & Archaeology and the Lewis Center for the Arts at Princeton. We trace the arc of Prof. Campt’s career, from her earlier research on family photography in the African diaspora and how one can “listen to images,” all the way to her current writing and recent trip to this year’s Venice Biennale. Along the way, we discuss concepts that elucidate the aesthetic, political, and experiential dynamics of work by artists like Jennifer Packer, Cameron Rowland, Stan Douglas, and Simone Leigh.
Deep Dive: How to “listen” to a photographTina M. Campt, Listening to Images (Duke University Press, 2017).
Tina M. Campt, A Black Gaze: Artists Changing How We See (MIT Press, 2021).
The Breakdown - Guest Info(Photo credit: barnard.edu)
Tina M. Campt (https://artandarchaeology.princeton.edu/people/tina-m-campt)
Professor Campt taught a multidisciplinary seminar called “Radical Composition” as a Visiting Professor at Princeton for the Spring 2022 semester. She is the Owen F. Walker Professor of Humanities and Modern Culture and Media at Brown University, and heads the Black Visualities Initiative at Brown’s Cogut Institute for Humanities. In addition to the five books she has authored and edited, such as Listening to Images and A Black Gaze, Professor Campt is the lead convener of the Practicing Refusal Collective and the Sojourner Project.
See, Hear, DoPrinceton AAS Podcast S2 E07
A Painter’s Eye
In this episode, we sit down with the legendary historian and artist Nell Painter to discuss her career and its connections to Black Studies. From reckoning with historical figures as individuals, to her life and work at Princeton, to her own works-in-progress, this podcast has something for everyone. Our hosts dive deep into Painter’s legacy and the lessons she has for our present moment.
The Culture of __“This new and 'old' artist offers a self-portrait in starting over,” PBS NewsHour, July 23, 2018
“Nell Painter: Old In Art School,” GBH Forum Network, July 31, 2018
The Breakdown - Guest InfoNell Irvin Painter (nellpainter.com)
Nell Irvin Painter is Edwards Professor of American History, Emerita at Princeton University. She was Director of Princeton's Program in African-American Studies from 1997 to 2000. In addition to her doctorate in history from Harvard University, she has received honorary doctorates from Wesleyan, Dartmouth, SUNY-New Paltz, and Yale. Prof. Painter has published numerous books, articles, reviews, and other essays, including The History of White People. She has served on numerous editorial boards and as an officer of many different professional organizations, including the American Historical Association, the Organization of American Historians, the American Antiquarian Society, the Association for the Study of Afro-American Life and History, and the Association of Black Women Historians.
Nell Painter (the painter formerly known as the historian Nell Irvin Painter) lives and works in Newark, New Jersey. Her work carries discursive as well as visual meaning, and is made in a manual and digital process. Using found images and digital manipulation, she reconfigures the past and self-revision through self-portraits. After a life of historical truth and political engagement with American society, her artwork represents freedom, including the freedom to be totally self-centered.
See, Hear, Do
On this podcast, we have addressed different dimensions of scientific racism from COVID-19 disparity data to the uses of human remains in anthropology.
The Culture of...Jacque Smith and Cassie Spodak, “Black or 'Other'? Doctors may be relying on race to make decisions about your health,” CNN, June 7, 2021
Ezra Turner, “MOVE Bombing Remains Scandal Shows Enduring Racism in Anthropology,” Teen Vogue, July 16, 2021
Black AF in STEM
The Breakdown - Guest Info(Photo credit: Becca Skinner / Day's Edge Productions)
Shane Campbell-Staton (https://www.campbellstaton.com/)
Shane Campbell-Staton is an Assistant Professor in Ecology and Evolutionary Biology at Princeton University. He comes to us from UCLA where he was jointly appointed in the Institute for Society and Genetics. His research group focuses on evolution in the Anthropocene, studying animal performance, gene expression and genomics to understand the lasting biological impacts of our human footprint. In addition to his scientific work, Shane hosts the popular podcast “The Biology of Superheroes,” with Arien Darby.
(Photo credit: Princeton University)
Ayah Nuriddin (https://sf.princeton.edu/people/ayah-nuriddin)
Ayah Nuriddin is a Cotsen Postdoctoral Fellow in Princeton’s Society of Fellows, as well as a lecturer in the Council of Humanities and African American Studies. She holds a Ph.D. in the History of Medicine from Johns Hopkins University. Ayah’s work shows how African Americans have navigated questions of racial science, eugenics, and hereditarianism in relation to struggles for racial justice since the nineteenth century. She is also interested in how race and scientific racism shape discourses and activism around health inequality. Ayah is working on a book manuscript, “Seed and Soil: Black Eugenic Thought in the Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries” and teaches courses at Princeton like “Beyond Tuskegee: Race and Human Subjects Research in US History.”
See, Hear, DoShane Cambpell-Staton and Arien Darby, The Biology of Superheroes Podcast
Ayah Nuriddin, “African Americans and Eugenics,” C-SPAN American History TV, January 5, 2018
Terence Keel, Divine Variations: How Christian Thought Became Racial Science (Stanford University Press, 2018)
PBS: American Experience, The Eugenics Crusade, October 16, 2018
Alexander Glustrom, Mossville: When Great Trees Fall (Fire River Films, 2020)
Two events in 1921—more than a thousand miles apart—had a profound impact on African American history: the production of the all-Black musical Shuffle Along and the Tulsa race massacre. A century on, an online workshop held at Princeton, Reactivating Memory, sought to explore the relationship between these seemingly disparate events and consider their legacy in Black life today. Our host Mélena Laudig sat down with Michael J. Love, A.J. Mohammed, and Dr. Catherine M. Young, all contributors to the team that organized this fascinating workshop. Tune in to learn more about how they balance performance, scholarship, and activism, and to dig into the history of Shuffle Along and the legacy of Black theatrical practice.
The Culture of...Brian D. Valencia, “Musical of the Month: Shuffle Along,” NYPL Blog, February 10, 2012
“Show Clips: SHUFFLE ALONG, Starring Audra McDonald,” Broadwaycom, May 10, 2016
Princeton AAS Podcast S2 E04
University Reckonings
Over the past decade, historians have probed the relationship between higher education and slavery through innovative public-facing projects that raise important questions. What role have academic institutions played in perpetuating racial inequality? How are scholars and students today working to hold universities accountable for past and present injustices? What role should public engagement play in shaping the future of scholarship and the mission of the university? As campuses buzz back to life, our hosts Ebun Ajayi and Mélena Laudig discuss the legacy of universities and slavery with up-and-coming scholars in Black Studies: R. Isabela Morales, Charlesa Redmond, and Ezelle Sanford, III.
The Culture of...President Eisgruber’s message to community on removal of Woodrow Wilson name from public policy school and Wilson College, June 27, 2020
Editorial Board, “After five years of student activism, it’s time for the U. to stop dragging its feet,” The Daily Princetonian, July 2, 2020
Maya Kassutto, “Remains of children killed in MOVE bombing sat in a box at Penn Museum for decades,” BillyPenn, April 21, 2021
“MOVE Bombing at 30,” Democracy Now, May 13, 2015
Benjamin Ball, “Students hold protest in solidarity with MOVE,” May 2, 2021
Association of Black Anthropologists, “Collective Statement Concerning the Possession and Unethical Use of Remains,” April 28, 2021
The Breakdown - Guest Info
Isabela Morales, Ph.D. (http://www.risabelamorales.com/)
Dr. R. Isabela Morales received her Ph.D. in history from Princeton University in 2019 and is Editor and Project Manager of the Princeton & Slavery Project. Her first book, Happy Dreams of Liberty: An American Family in Slavery and Freedom, is forthcoming from Oxford University Press in 2022. After two years working for the 9/11 Memorial Museum, she will join the Stoutsburg Sourland African American Museum while working on her second book project.
Ezelle Sanford III, Ph.D. (http://www.ezellesanford.com/)
Dr. Ezelle Sanford III is an Assistant Professor of History at Carnegie Mellon University and received his PhD in history of science from Princeton in 2019. A scholar of African American, medical, and urban history, Dr. Sanford’s book project, Segregated Medicine: How Racial Politics Shaped American Healthcare, explores the history of racial inequality in healthcare through the lens of St. Louis’s Homer G. Phillips Hospital, America’s largest segregated hospital in the mid-twentieth century. Before coming to his current position, Dr. Sanford was a Postdoctoral Fellow and Project Manager for the Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery Project.
Charlesa Redmond (https://scholars.duke.edu/person/charlesa.redmond)
Charlesa Redmond is a Ph.D. student in History at Duke University. A 2017 graduate of Princeton University, her senior thesis work was based in materials made accessible through the Princeton & Slavery Project. Her Ph.D. research aims to explore how colleges and universities tried to answer “the slavery question,” and how such answers manifested themselves into tangible actions—frustrating the slave trade at times while furthering it at others.
See, Hear, DoThe Princeton & Slavery Project
Penn & Slavery Project and Penn Medicine and the Afterlives of Slavery
Komal Patel, “Penn Museum to remove Morton Cranial Collection from public view after student opposition,” The Daily Pennsylvanian, July 12, 2020.
Rachel L. Swans, “272 Slaves Were Sold to Save Georgetown. What Does It Owe Their Descendants?” The New York Times, April 17th, 2016
Georgetown Slavery Archive and Georgetown Reflects on Slavery, Memory, and Reconciliation
“Black at Mizzou,” APM Reports, August 14, 2020
Courtney Perrett, “MU alumna shares her 'Black at Mizzou' experience in new audio documentary,” Missourian, August 18, 2020
Eddie R. Cole, The Campus Color Line: College Presidents and the Struggle for Black Freedom (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2020)
“College presidents and the struggle for Black freedom,” Princeton University Press Ideas Podcast, December 1st, 2020
Stanley Nelson and Marco Williams, Tell Them We Are Rising (PBS Independent Lens, 2018)
When we talk about Juneteenth, sometimes called America's second Independence Day, what exactly are we talking about? How has the end of slavery been celebrated across time in Black communities? What political obligations does its commemoration bring to the fore? Join our hosts, Ebun Ajayi and Mélena Laudig, as they talk with Professor Joshua B. Guild about the past, present, and future of Juneteenth.
Note: At press time, both the Senate and House have passed a bill making Juneteenth a federal holiday. The bill is on President Biden’s desk.
The Culture of __“Celebrating Juneteenth,” ABC News, June 19, 2020
Joshua Gargiulo, “Fact check: Barack Obama mentioned Juneteenth multiple times while president,” USA Today, June 28, 2020
Jeanine Santuci, “'I made Juneteenth very famous': Trump takes credit for holiday celebrating Emancipation Proclamation,” USA Today, June 18, 2020
“What Is Juneteenth? Dulcé Sloan Explains,” The Daily (Social Distancing) Show, June 19, 2020
“What Juneteenth tells us about the value of black life in America,” The Washington Post, June 19, 2020
Our second episode looks at the culture and politics of Black foodways, from the ways in which Black women have used food to create traditions and claim power to the contemporary politics of nutrition, stereotypes, and food shaming. Beyond the platitude that food unites us all, Ebun Ajayi and Mélena Laudig explore the diversity of ways in which food is a site where identities are constructed and contested.
In our inaugural new episode, Ebun and Mae take a deep dive into questions about the impact of COVID-19 on communities of color. From cultural responses to lockdown and the need for a government response to creating a more just and inclusive public health system, our host break down multiple dimensions of the pandemic and point toward some resources to learn more.
IntroductionCenters for Disease Control and Prevention, “COVID-19 Racial and Ethnic Health Disparities”
“Cardi B Coronavirus Remix (Clean)”
Dax, “Coronavirus (State of Emergency)”
The Breakdown - Guest Info(Photo credit: IAPHS.org)
Prof. Sharrelle Barber (https://drexel.edu/dornsife/academics/faculty/Sharrelle-Barber/)
Dr. Sharrelle Barber is a social epidemiologist whose research focuses on the intersection of "place, race, and health." Through empirical evidence, her work seeks to document how racism becomes "embodied" through the neighborhood context and how this fundamental structural determinant of racial health inequities can be leveraged for transformative change through anti-racist policy initiatives. Dr. Barber’s research is framed through a structural racism lens, grounded in interdisciplinary theories (e.g. Ecosocial Theory and Critical Race Theory) and employs various advanced methodological techniques including multilevel modeling and longitudinal data analyses. Her articles and commentary appear in leading publications, including the Lancet Infectious Disease, the American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, and The Nation. A member of the Health Justice Advisory Committee for the Poor People’s Campaign, Dr. Barber is committed to using her scholarship to make the invisible visible, mobilize data for action, and contribute to the transnational dialogue around racism and health inequities.
(Photo credit: Sameer Khan/Fotobuddy)
Prof. Keith Wailoo (http://www.keithwailoo.com/)
Keith Andrew Wailoo is Henry Putnam University Professor of History and Public Affairs at Princeton University where he teaches in the Department of History and the School of Public and International Affairs. The current President of the American Association for the History of Medicine (2020-22), he is an award-winning author on drugs and drug policy; race, science, and health; genetics and society; and history of medicine, disease, health policy and medical affairs in the United States. Wailoo is currently working on several book-length projects: a history of addiction in the United States.; a history of how pandemics past and present transformed life in the United States; and Poisoning Master — a story of enslavement, drugs, the law, and racial hierarchy, set in 1850s Tennessee on the cusp of the Civil War and focusing on the trial of an enslaved girl, a nurse accused of murder. Wailoo joins Dr. Anthony Fauci and others as a recipient of the 2021 Dan David Prize, an award endowed by the Dan David Foundation and headquartered at Tel Aviv University.
See, Hear, DoLibrary Company of Philadelphia - Deja Vu, We’ve Been Here Before: Race, Health, and Epidemics
Theo Rogers, Milwaukee in Pain
Antoine S. Johnson, Elise A. Mitchell, and Ayah Nuriddin, “Syllabus: A History of Anti-Black Racism in Medicine,” Black Perspectives (blog)
Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, “Black America has a Reason to Question Authorities”
Recent Certificate recipient, Heath Pearson, Ph.D. sits down with American Jazz Trumpeter, Christian Scott, to discuss his inspirations, his creative process, and the importance of musically challenging himself.
Christian, also known as Christian Scott aTunde Adjuah, is an architect of concepts. His signature Stretch Music, a genre-blind form, allows him to create sonic landscapes across multiple forms of sound, language, thought, and culture. At once, Trap, Alt Rock, World Music. Stretch Music is, as its creator, a collision of ideas and identities. Growing up as an heir to a Legendary Afro-New Orleanian Chieftain amidst the complexities of a racially and economically conflicted New Orleans, Adjuah’s work reflects his sensibilities: analytic, expansive and unafraid to confront the social and political realities of our time head-on.
Please note that the following content contains strong langauge. Parental advisory is advised
Professor Eddie Glaude Jr. sits down with Assistant Professor Autumn Womack to explore the process of developing a book. Professor Womack sheds light on the power of the archive, the importance of honing in on your ideas, and insights on organizing your ideas for manuscript.
We then join Professor Joshua Guild in conversation with activist and author Albert Woodfox. His book, Solitary, follows his unforgettable life story and journey of serving more than four decades in solitary confinement—in a 6-foot by 9-foot cell, 23 hours a day, in the notorious Angola prison in Louisiana—all for a crime he did not commit.
That Albert Woodfox survived was, in itself, a feat of extraordinary endurance against the violence and deprivation he faced daily. That he was able to emerge whole from his odyssey within America’s prison and judicial systems is a triumph of the human spirit, and makes his book a clarion call to reform the inhumanity of solitary confinement in the U.S. and around the world.
The podcast currently has 27 episodes available.