Left of Black, the weekly video webcast that I host in conjunction with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University, is now in it’s second season. The show is on holiday hiatus until January 9th, when we will broadcast a new episode featuring Princeton University Professor Eddie Glaude and UCLA Sociologist Mingon Moore. Until then, here’s a collection of some of our best episodes from 2011.
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Left of Black S1:E19
w/ Hank Willis Thomas
January 31, 2011
In this special episode of Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined by conceptual artist Hank Willis Thomas. Thomas’ works include Winter in America (2008), Branded(2008), ReBranded (2008), Black is Beautiful (2009), Fair Warning (2010) and UnBranded (2010) and he is the author of Pitch Blackness (2008). Neal and Thomas engage in a wide ranging conversation about Black masculinity, urban violence, the export of Black popular culture and Michael Jackson as well as a walk-thru of Thomas’ Hope Exhibition at the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.
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Left of Black S1:E23
w/Shana Tucker
February 21, 2011
February 21, 2011
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal welcomes independent artist and cellist Shana Tuckerinto the Left of Black studio at the John Hope Franklin Center. Tucker and Neal discuss her new fan-financed CD SHiNE and a style of music that Tucker calls “Chamber Soul.”
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Left of Black Episode S1:E24
w/Pierre & Jamyla Bennu & Rebecca Walker
March 7, 2011
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by filmmaker and conceptual artist Pierre Bennu and his partner and natural beauty care producer Jamyla Bennu. Later writer Rebecca Walker joins Neal, also via Skype, from her home in Hawaii.
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Left of Black S1:E28
w/ Rosa Clemente and 9th Wonder
March 21, 2011
w/ Rosa Clemente and 9th Wonder
March 21, 2011
Left of Black host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by Rosa Clemente (via Skype), the 2008 Green Party Vice-Presidential candidate in a conversation about the historic Green Party ticket in 2008, contemporary Black activism and Hip-Hop. Later Neal is joined in-studio by Grammy Award winning producer, label head and educator 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit).
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Left of Black S1:E31
w/ Karla FC Holloway
April 25, 2011
w/ Karla FC Holloway
April 25, 2011
Left of Black host and Duke UniversityProfessor Mark Anthony Neal is joined by fellow Duke University Professor Karla FC Holloway, author the new book Private Bodies, Public Texts: Race, Gender, and a Cultural Bioethics (Duke University Press). Neal and Holloway discuss medical racism, the Tuskegee experiments and the late Manning Marable’s biography of Malcolm X.
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Left of Black S1:E32
w/ Aishah Shahidah Simmons & Zaheer Ali
May 2, 2011
Left of Blackhost and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined via Skype by filmmaker Aishah Shahidah Simmons in a discussion of sexual violence in Black communities, homophobia, and popular culture controversies surrounding Ashley Judd, Kobe Bryant and DJ Mister Cee. Later Neal talks with historian Zaheer Ali, one of the lead researchers on the late Manning Marable’s Malcolm X: A Life of Re-invention.
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Left of Black S2:E4
w/ Julie Dash & Lizz Wright
October 3, 2011
w/ Julie Dash & Lizz Wright
October 3, 2011
Filmmaker Julie Dash joins host and Duke UniversityProfessor Mark Anthony Neal on Left of Black. This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the release of Dash’s ground-breaking film Daughters of the Dust which was the first feature by an African-American woman to gain national theatrical release. The film draws on Dash’s South Carolina heritage and focuses on three generations of women with roots in the Sea Islands and Gullah culture. Dash discusses how she became a filmmaker and the challenges she faced along the way. Dash also reveals her surprising view of filmmaker Tyler Perry.
In the second segment, musical artist and vocalist Lizz Wrightjoins Neal. The Georgia born singer discusses how her family’s tradition in storytelling inspired her career as a vocalist. Wright, whose music is difficult to place in one genre, talks about incorporating religion into her music as well. Wright also identifies the musicians who influenced her and the inspiration her album artwork. Finally Wright explains how she’s maintained control of her music. Wright has released four full-length recordings, including the recent Fellowship.
In the second segment, musical artist and vocalist Lizz Wrightjoins Neal. The Georgia born singer discusses how her family’s tradition in storytelling inspired her career as a vocalist. Wright, whose music is difficult to place in one genre, talks about incorporating religion into her music as well. Wright also identifies the musicians who influenced her and the inspiration her album artwork. Finally Wright explains how she’s maintained control of her music. Wright has released four full-length recordings, including the recent Fellowship.
Left of Black S2:E6
w/ Dr. Kenneth Montague and Kellie Jones
October 17, 2011
w/ Dr. Kenneth Montague and Kellie Jones
October 17, 2011
Dr. Kenneth Montague, a Toronto-based dentist and the curator of Becoming: Photographs from the Wedge Collection, joins Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal at the Nasher Museum in Durham, Carolina. The Windsor, Ontario born Montague has collected contemporary art since the 1990s, and was influenced by African American culture from across the Detroit River. Neal and Montague discuss some of the featured artists in the collection including Jamel Shabazz, Carrie Mae Weems, Malick Sidibé, and James VanDerZee, and the importance of collecting Black Art.
Later in the episode, Neal is joined via Skype© by Columbia UniversityArt Historian Kellie Jones, author of the new book Eyeminded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art. Neal and Jones discuss her famous parents, Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka, and her work as curator of the new exhibit, Now Dig this! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
Later in the episode, Neal is joined via Skype© by Columbia UniversityArt Historian Kellie Jones, author of the new book Eyeminded: Living and Writing Contemporary Art. Neal and Jones discuss her famous parents, Hettie Jones and Amiri Baraka, and her work as curator of the new exhibit, Now Dig this! Art and Black Los Angeles, 1960-1980 at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles.
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Left of Black S2:E9
w/ Vijay Prashad and Leyla Farah
November 7, 2011
w/ Vijay Prashad and Leyla Farah
November 7, 2011
Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Nealis joined via Skype© by Vijay Prashad, George and Martha Kellner Chair in South Asian History and Professor of International Studies at Trinity College and author of the recent award winning book The Darker Nations: A People’s History of the Third World (The New Press, paperback 2008). Neal and Prashad, discuss the impact of the #Occupy Movement and what role Left academics and intellectuals have to play in the movement.
Later Neal is joined by Leyla Farah, author of Black Gifted and Gay which profiles the lives and accomplishments of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community’s living icons—who just happen to be of African descent. Farah is a Founding Partner at Cause+Effect, a PR firm focused exclusively on the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community.
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Left of Black S2:E13
“Acting White” in the “Post-Black” Era
w/ Professor Karolyn Tyson and Ytasha Womack
December 5, 2011
Left of Blackhost and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is joined in-studio by Professor Karolyn Tyson, Associate Professor of Sociology at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and author of Integration Interrupted: Tracking, Black Students, and Acting White After Brown(Oxford University Press). Neal and Tyson discuss the prevalence of the “Acting White” myth as it relates to Black high school students and how the myth obscures the more insidious practice of “Racialized Tracking” in Public Education.
Later Neal is joined via Skype© by Ytasha Womack, journalist and author of Post-Black: How a Generation is Redefining African American Identity (Lawrence Hill Books). Neal and Womack discuss the concept of “Post-Black” and what impact it has had on identity formation among the so-called “Post-Black” generation.
