Season 7: Episode 1 | One of the Smartest Characters in African American Fiction
A short take on a character that many readers view as one of the smartest characters in African American fiction.
Season 6: Episode 5 | Read Black Novels, Find Harriet Jacobs’s Legacy
Among the most taught, most discussed, most notable novels by Black women, we can trace Harriet Jacobs’s legacy.
Season 6: Episode 3 | The Bluest Eye Doesn’t Go Down Easy
Are the people who ban books ever right, if only by accident?
Season 6: Episode 1 | Black Men Novelists and Intellectual Traditions
A short take on an interconnected thread of intellectualism in novels by black men.
Season 5: Episode 7 | Terry McMillan’s Waiting to Exhale
Terry McMillan’s novel was among a chorus of late twentieth-century books that signaled a reawakening in the African American cultural imagination and revealed a strong interest in the representation of Black love, romance, and marriage.
Season 5: Episode 6 | How Students Connect to Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal”
A short take on how students at a college in Georgia respond to Ralph Ellison’s “Battle Royal.”
Season 5: Episode 5 | The Mixed Results of Sutton Grigg’s Debut
Despite revieing positive reviews, why did Sutton Griggs have some unfavorable feelings about the circumstances surrounding his first book?
Season 5: Episode 4 | Black Women Writers Courses
Here’s a short take on where all those Black Women Writers courses come from.
Season 5: Episode 3 | Angie Thomas and Literary Activism
Angie Thomas’s The Hate U Give found a raw edge that audiences were keen to address.
Season 5: Episode 2 | Frances E. W. Harper’s Iola Leroy
College students are often excited to discuss the subtle radicalism of Iola Leroy by Frances Ellen Watkins Harper.