Blackness and Belonging

09/15/22 • 73 min

In the first episode of the Black Studies Podcast, we are joined by Dr. Debra Thompson and Tari Ajadi to discuss creative and collaborative work on Blackness, belonging and the search for promising and fantastic futures.

Dr. Debra Thompson is the Canada Research Chair in Racial Inequality in Democratic Societies at McGill University and a leading scholar of the comparative politics of race. Deb's teaching and research interests focus on the relationships among race, the state, and inequality in democratic societies. She has taught at the University of Oregon, Northwestern University, Ohio University, and held a SSHRC postdoctoral fellowship with the Center for American Political Studies at Harvard.

Tari Ajadi is a PhD candidate in Political Science at Dalhousie University and a Black Studies Pre-doctoral fellow at Queen’s University. A British-Nigerian immigrant to Canada, Tari aims to produce research that supports and engages with Black communities across the country. He is a co-founder of the Nova Scotia Policing Policy Working Group, a member of the Board of Directors of the Health Association of African Canadians, as well as a Board Member with the East Coast Prison Justice Society.

Topics discussed in this wonderfully generous, caring, and thoughtful conversation include:

Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census
The Two Pandemics of Anti-Black Racism and COVID-19
Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Black Life and Livingness
Black Studies and the University
Autoethnography and Socially Engaged Research

Transcript

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

Topics discussed in this wonderfully generous, caring, and thoughtful conversation include:

Race, Transnationalism, and the Politics of the Census
The Two Pandemics of Anti-Black Racism and COVID-19
Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era
Black Life and Livingness
Black Studies and the University
Autoethnography and Socially Engaged Research

Transcript

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

Previous Episode

The Black Studies Podcast

The Black Studies Podcast brings scholars, activists and artists together to discuss creative and collaborative knowledge-making.

Join Daniel McNeil, Sally El Sayed, Alador Bereketab and global thought leaders each week to explore the connections between the arts, social justice, and decolonial thought.

Inspired by creative and enthusiastic social visions of Black life, livingness and culture, our conversations:

•Consider how we can forge new forms of belonging with time, space and each other

•Explore intellectual work within, beyond and outside the university

•Cultivate interdisciplinary and intergenerational communication

•Engage with the practice of joy in and against sorrow.

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

Next Episode

Hip Hop Philosophy, Pedagogy and Liberation

In this week’s episode of the Black Studies Podcast, we’re joined by Professor Reuben May and Dr. Dalitso Ruwe to discuss hip hop philosophy, pedagogy and liberation.

Our conversation about Black self-fashioning and collective liberation discusses Tupac, Public Enemy, Nipsey Hussle, Richard Wright, Tricia Rose, Lewis Gordon, Malcolm X, and many other artists, intellectuals and activists. In addition to our discussion about hip hop music and culture, we reflect on house music, policing, mentorship, stand-up comedy and other sites of power, contestation and desire.

Professor Reuben A. Buford May is the Florian Znaniecki Professorial Scholar and Professor of Sociology at the University of Illinois at Urbana—Champaign. He is also the author of three books: Urban Nightlife: Entertaining Race, Class, and Culture in Public Space, the award-winning book Living Through the Hoop: High School Basketball, Race, and the American Dream (2008) and Talking at Trena’s: Everyday Conversations at an African American Tavern (2001). He has been a fellow at the W.E.B. Du Bois Institute for African and African American Research at Harvard University and a Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. visiting professor at MIT. May received his Ph.D. in sociology from the University of Chicago, and his research focuses on race and culture, urban ethnography, the sociology of sport, and the sociology of the everyday. In addition to his awards, books and other scholarly publications, May has been featured on radio and television and in print media, in particular for his performance as the #rappingprofessor Reginald S. Stuckey. He has performed at venues like Kyle Field, the Chicago House of Blues, Hard Rock Café in Seattle, as well as others in major cities.

Dr. Dalitso Ruwe holds a joint appointment as an Assistant Professor of Black Political Thought in the Philosophy Department and Black Studies Program at Queen’s University. His research interests are intellectual history of Africana philosophy, anticolonial theory, Africana legal history, Black male studies, and Black philosophies of education. His recent publications appear in APA Newsletter: The Black Experience, Theory & Event, Teachers College Record and The Blackwell Companion to Public Philosophy, Journal of Critical Race Inquiry & Canadian Journal of Continental Philosophy.

Transcript

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