Duke Fellow Explores U.S./German Cultural Differences
For Thomas Stelzl, a semester spent as a high school exchange student in Wisconsin seeded a strong interest in American culture, and how it differs from German culture and politics. “I’m drawn to American Studies because of the U.S. influence in the world,” said Stelzl who came to Duke from the University of Passau in […]
9th Wonder’s Donation Makes Way for Hip-Hop in Duke Arts
By Sadé Dinkins “When you’re in front of your beat Maschine, there’s nothing but you and the Maschine. It’s a sacred place nobody can get in between,” said Grammy Award-winning producer and African & African American Studies professor Patrick Douthit, also known as 9th Wonder. He should know. This summer Douthit, who founded Jamla Records, […]
To Go Down Dilapidated: A Case For Removing Confederate Monuments
By Mark Anthony Neal As protests go, the pulling down of Confederate monuments is low-hanging fruit. They are largely symbolic acts directed at symbols that, by and large, have long been relegated to unread history books and museums. But low-hanging fruit can also be poisonous. State laws passed to protect these monuments—to weaponize them—are now […]
Introduction to Black Code Studies: Wild Seed in the Machine
Excerpted from The Black Scholar, Vol. 47, Aug. 2017 By Jessica Marie Johnson and Mark Anthony Neal Black Code Studies is queer, femme, fugitive, and radical. As praxis and methodology, it waxes insurgent. It refutes conceptions of the digital that remove black diasporic people from engagement with technology, modernity, or the future. It centers black […]
New Duke Graduate Course: Hip Hop in the House of Hall
This fall, Professor Mark Anthony Neal will teach a new graduate course at Duke University – “Hip-Hop in the House of Hall: Critical Readings in Hip-Hop Studies.” The fall 2017 course will be held Mondays at 6:15 p.m. in Friedl 216. The course will examine the roots of the field of Hip-Hop Studies in […]
‘Don’t Get It Twisted:’ Black Girls’ Dehumanization Is Not the Same as Adultification
by Linda M. Burton & PhD & Donna-Marie Winn, Ph.D. Ask NBC News. They recently learned what happens when you tweet a story with a headline that erroneously twisted Sally Hemmings’ personal narrative of horrific, repeated rapes at the hands of Thomas Jefferson into a headline about her being Jefferson’s mistress. NBC News learned […]
The Juice Box Incident and the Erasure of Black Girlhood
by Mark Anthony Neal | @NewBlackMan | NewBlackMan (in Exile) It has come to be known in our family as the “juice box incident”. I was called to my youngest daughter’s kindergarten class at a local charter school because she was being suspended. Apparently, my daughter had been accused of purposely squeezing juice, from […]
1974 | Rock Your Baby by George McCrae
From PBS American Experience Collection, Songs of Summer: By Mark Anthony Neal His wife was supposed to sing it. George McCrae’s own music career had languished in Palm Beach clubs, in what might be thought of as an upscale chitlin’ circuit. At the time, he was about to go back to school to study law […]
