Digital Black Christians

03/13/22 • 56 min

This Week in Black History, Society, and Culture

In this episode, Dr. Hettie V. Williams is in conversation with Dr. Erika D. Gault about digital Black Christians and Hip Hop. Williams is Associate Professor of African American history in the Department of History and Anthropology at Monmouth University. Gault is Assistant Professor of Africana Studies at the University of Arizona. Dr. Gault’s scholarly work focuses on the intersection of religious history, technology, and urban Black life in post-industrial America. She is also the author of Networking the Black Church: Digital Black Christians and Hip Hop (New York University Press, 2022). The focus of this show is on Dr. Gault’s innovative way of rethinking the Black Church and the new generation of Black Christians that she refers to as “digital Christians” and their engagement with religion.

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Black Women in U.S. Military History

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Professor Melissa Ziobro. Williams is Associate Professor of African American History at Monmouth University and Ziobro is a Specialist Professor in Public History at Monmouth. This discussion centers on the history of Black women in the U.S. military as this is a subject that does need to be studied further by scholars and public historians more generally. See below for Professor Ziobro’s recommendations/sources on Black women in the U.S. military.
Resources on Black Women in U.S. Military History:

Glory in Their Spirit: How Four Black Women Took On the Army during World War II, by Sandra Bolzenius, 2018.

Standing Up Against Hate: How Black Women in the Army Helped Change the Course of WWII, by Mary Farrell, 2019.

Excellent Library of Congress bibliography on Black women in the military: https://www.loc.gov/rr/scitech//SciRefGuides/africanamericanwomenwar.html

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Race and Medieval Studies

In this episode, Hettie V. Williams is in discussion with Drs. Heide Estes and Mary Rambaran-Olm about race and Medieval Studies. Estes is Professor of English in the Department of English at Monmouth University where she regularly teaches medieval literature, ecocriticism, history of the English language, and linguistics. She is also Chair of the University Qualifications Committee and a member of the Faculty Association and Inclusion working group. Estes is also editor of the journal Medieval Ecocriticisms and the author of Anglo-Saxon Literary Landscapes: Ecotheory and the Environmental Imagination published by Amsterdam University Press in 2017. Rambaran-Olm is a literary historian specializing in the literature and history of early medieval England with a focus on the fifth to eleventh centuries. She has written several articles, essays and book chapters and is currently working on a book project about race in early medieval England. She is currently the Provost’s Post-doctoral Fellow at the University of Toronto. Some resources shared by Dr. Rambaran-Olm:
This is an intro into race in Early English studies: https://medium.com/@mrambaranolm/race-101-for-early-medieval-studies-selected-readings-77be815f8d0f

Also if people want a primer on the term "Anglo-Saxon" I wrote that and it's open access here: https://medium.com/@mrambaranolm/history-bites-resources-on-the-problematic-term-anglo-saxon-part-1-9320b6a09eb7

As for people to follow on Twitter who work on the Middle Ages and are doing good things:

@erik_kaars

@DrDadabhoy

@archaeofiend

@chantermestuet

@ShammaBoyarin