The Black Studies Podcast Daniel McNeil

In the season finale of the Black Studies podcast, Gavin "Gavsborg" Blair and Isis Semaj-Hall join us to talk about dub aesthetics and the rhythms, sounds, and music that help them to find new forms of belonging with time, space, and each other.
Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair is co-founder of Equiknoxx Music, a Kingston-based production and performance collective, with Bobby Blackbird. With roots in Reggae, Hip Hop, Jazz, Dancehall & Ska, the group operates across multiple genres while staying Jamaican to the core. Equiknoxx has released music for Aidonia, Busy Signal, Beenie Man, Ky-Mani Marley, Krayzie Bone, Masicka, J.O.E, Shanique Marie among others. While collaborating with Illum Sphere, Swing Ting, Mark Ernestus, Poirier, Arcade Fire and The Dirty Projectors among others, Equiknoxx continues to be revered for sharing new Jamaican expressions with the world and “making dancehall weird again” (Pitchfork magazine). 
  
Dr. Isis Semaj-Hall is the Riddim Writer. She is a literary scholar, decolonial feminist, and cultural analyst with a creative practice that is nurtured by sound. As the Riddim Writer, she creates sound art and hosts the podcast “For Posterity” where she interviews Caribbean writers, musicians, visual artists, and inspiring citizens. As a Caribbean storytelling advocate, she has dubbed poetry and published non-fiction and fiction works. She is also co-founder and editor of the online literary magazine PREE: Caribbean Writing. With a commitment to opening-up access, her cultural analysis and critical scholarship have been published in peer-reviewed academic journals, in non-academic outlets, and can be heard on the 2022 Carnegie Hall produced Afrofuturism podcast. She is currently completing her monograph “On the B-Side: Storytelling Meets Caribbean Futurism in Infinite Dub,” a critical exploration of word-sound-power, deep listening, environmental wisdom, and Caribbean identities. Dr. Semaj-Hall is the Caribbean literature and popular culture specialist in the Department of Literatures in English at the University of the West Indies, Mona Campus in Kingston, Jamaica. 
Episode Transcript

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are thrilled to be joined by Zélie Asava and Tambay A. Obenson to discuss cinemas of the Black diaspora. This conversation explores historically informed and forward-looking approaches to African film; the complexities of global Black communities; writing against the grain of histories and business models that revolve around Hollywood and American cinema; and much, much more!  
 
Dr Zélie Asava is a specialist in questions of race, gender, screen studies, and visual culture. She is the author of The Black Irish Onscreen and Mixed Race Cinemas, and co-edited a Special Issue of the Journal of Scandinavian Cinema on black and ethnic minority representation. She sits on the Boards of Screen Ireland, the Irish Film Institute, the journal French Screen Studies, Catalyst International Film Festival and the arts magazine Unapologetic, and is a member of the European Commission’s ‘Capital of Culture’ panel of experts. 
 
With over 15 years of experience, Tambay A. Obenson has emerged as a trusted voice in African and diaspora cinema. He founded Shadow and Act in 2009, building what would become the leading online platform for Black film coverage with a global perspective, and spent four years at IndieWire as a Staff Writer. Currently, Tambay is building Akoroko, a new platform focused on mainstreaming coverage of and access to films telling African stories globally. 
Episode Transcript

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the second part of a wonderfully rich, stimulating, and wide-ranging conversation between Grégory Pierrot and Anthony C. Alessandrini about the politics and poetics of translation, the life and legacy of Frantz Fanon, Black study, decolonial praxis, and much, much more!  Some of the books and films discussed in the second part of this fantastic conversation include: 
Joshua Myer’s On Black Study Jafar Panahi's No BearsIsaac Julien’s Frantz Fanon: Black Skin, White Mask Ousmane Sembène’s Xala Juliano Mer Khamis and Danniel Danniel’s Arna’s Children 
Episode transcript

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We are back with a special, two-part episode with Grégory Pierrot and Anthony C. Alessandrini about the politics and poetics of translation and much, much more!
Grégory Pierrot is an Associate Professor of English at the University of Connecticut at Stamford. He is the author of Decolonize Hipsters (OR Books, 2021), The Black Avenger in Atlantic Culture (UGA, 2019) and co-editor of Haitian Revolutionary Fictions: An Anthology (UVA, 2022) and Marcus Rainsford’s An Historical Account of the Black Empire of Hayti (Duke, 2013). He is also a co-host of the webseries Decolonize That!   
 
Anthony C. Alessandrini is a writer and public educator based in New York. He is the author of Frantz Fanon and the Future of Cultural Politics; the editor of Frantz Fanon: Critical Perspectives; and the co-editor of “Resistance Everywhere”. He has also published a poetry chapbook, Children Imitating Cormorants. He teaches English at Kingsborough Community College-CUNY and Middle Eastern Studies at the CUNY Graduate Center, where he is a member of the Committee on Globalization and Social Change. He is also on the faculty of the Brooklyn Institute for Social Research. He is a Co-Editor of Jadaliyya, a Co-Convener of the International Solidarity Action Research Network (ISARN), and an active member of the Palestine solidarity movement. 
Some of the work discussed in the first part of this wonderfully rich, stimulating, and wide-ranging conversation:  
Sophia Azeb’s piece on the Pan-African Cultural Festival of 1969 in The Funambulist Paul Gilroy’s Against Race Cedric J. Robinson: On Racial Capitalism, Black Internationalism, and Cultures of Resistance, edited by H. L. T. Quan.  Alberto Toscano's "The Long Shadow of Racial Fascism" Grégory Pierrot’s Decolonize Hipsters  Roderick Ferguson’s We Demand: The University and Student Protests  Angela Davis’s Lectures on Liberation Anthony C. Alessandrini, The Lived Experience of Social Construction and Decolonize Multiculturalism Chelsea Stieber’s “John Brown Had a Sick Beard”  
Episode Transcript

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week we are joined by Anna Jane McIntyre and Angélique Willkie to discuss their playful, gentle, and assertive approaches to activism and art-making.
 
Anna Jane McIntyre is a British-Trinidadian-now-Canadian multidisciplinary artist who explores Architectures of Being & Breathing through non-compartmentalised-think-light-movement-heavy art forms like printmaking, kinetic sculpture, installation, gifs, costume making, to-do lists, storytelling, story-setting, bushcraft, inaccurate portraiture & dodgy $5 entrepreneurial street sale experiments.
 
Anna’s draft composition for the "We" mural at the Athletics and Recreation building, Queen's University, can be viewed on her website.
 
A dance artivist, Angélique Willkie grounds herself in corporeal and decolonial dramaturgies. That work moves her through the structures of Concordia University.
 
More information about Angélique’s solo performance, Confession Publique, can be found online, as can further details about her role as chair of the President's Task Force on Anti-Black Racism at Concordia.
Songs selected by Angelique and Anna Jane have been added to the Black List, a playlist that compiles songs of sorrow and joy selected by guests on the Black Studies podcast. You can also find more bonus content inspired by our conversations with multidisciplinary artists, activists, curators, musicians, and scholars on Instagram (@blackstudiespodcast) and Linktree (https://linktr.ee/blackstudiespodcast)
 
Episode transcript

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

In season two of the Black Studies Podcast, we assemble multidisciplinary artists, activists, curators, musicians, and scholars for creative and collaborative knowledge-making, building, and sharing. 
Our conversations with Anna Jane McIntyre, Angélique Willkie, Grégory Pierrot, Anthony C. Alessandrini, Zélie Asava, Tambay A. Obenson, Gavin “Gavsborg” Blair and Isis Semaj-Hall explore: 
•Artmaking and activism that is sensitive, playful, and assertive
•Black Studies within and beyond the university  
•The redemptive power of culture, and the deep lasting pleasures of Black popular culture
•The overthrow of embedded colonial ideas
•The music and cinema of the Black diaspora 
•And much more…
Speakers featured in the trailer: Daniel McNeil, Angélique Willkie, Alanna Stuart, Grégory Pierrot, Jeden Tolentino, Zélie Asava, Toleen Touq
Music featured in the trailer: "Ren Riddim" by pyne

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.