Indiana University Press blog

Transition editors to give talk at Harvard Book Store

Guest editors Laurent Dubios and Kaiama L. Glover will discuss the IUP journal Transition this Friday, May 3 at 7:30 p.m. at the Harvard Book Store in Cambridge, MA. The editors, along with Gina Athena Ulysse and other guests, will read from the 111th issue titled "New Narratives of Haiti." For more information, visit the Harvard Book Store's website.

john a. powell to discuss 'Racing to Justice' at Center for Community Change

john a. powell will discuss his latest book, Racing to Justice, on Tuesday, April 16 from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m. at the Center for Community Change in Washington, DC. Please RSVP to Jerry Jones at jjones@communitychange.org if you are able to attend.

For more information on Racing to Justice, watch this book trailer:

Reading selections for Jazz Appreciation Month

In honor of Jazz Appreciation Month this April, we offer the following reading selections on important people in places in jazz history.

Second Wingspread conference of the National Jazz Service Organization, 1986. Billy Taylor, Harold Horowitz, David Baker, and Congressman John Conyers, Jr. Courtesy of David Baker.

In his new autobiography The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor (written with Teresa L. Reed), the legendary jazz ambassador discusses his 60+ years in music, from the heyday of jazz on 52nd Street in 1940s New York City to his appearances on CBS Sunday Morning. Taylor fought not only for the recognition of jazz music as "America's classical music" but also for the recognition of black musicians as key contributors to the American music repertoire. In this excerpt, Taylor discusses segregation and his early musical influences.

Read excerpt

Like Taylor, David Baker's musical career was also influenced by segregation. He attended Crispus Attucks High School, an all-black school in Indianapolis, IN, with an excellent music program, to which he attributes much of his success. In this excerpt from David Baker: A Legacy in Music, Lissa May discusses the impact of the Indianapolis music scene and Baker's high school on his musical career.

Read excerpt

IU Press podcast with David Baker and Monika Herzig

Recently featured in Jazzhouse (along with David Baker), Kathy Sloane's Keystone Korner chronicles the experience of this beloved jazz club through more than 100 black and white photographs, a collage of oral histories, and a marvelous CD. During the 1970s, when jazz clubs all over America were folding under the onslaught of rock and roll and disco, San Francisco’s Keystone Korner was an oasis for jazz musicians and patrons. Tucked next to a police station in the city’s North Beach area, the Keystone became known as one of the most important jazz spots in the United States.

 Read excerpt

In his newly revised and expanded edition of Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy, Rick Kennedy examines a small town record studio with a big place in jazz history. Gennett Records in Richmond, IN, was the site of many historic firsts, including the first interracial recording with Jelly Roll Morton and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings and Louis Armstrong's first recording with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. Kennedy traces the colorful history of one of America's most innovative record companies in this excerpt from the book.

Read excerpt

Book trailer

Book review: Stolen Childhood

"King's work is fresh and accessible. It fills key gaps in scholarship on slavery and would make for a worthwhile read for anyone from the casual reader of history to the scholar. As a result, Stolen Childhood is recommended for purchase by academic libraries and public libraries that have strong nonfiction collections." —Tennessee Libraries

Reading selections for Black History Month: Part 3, IU Press journals

In the final installment of our Black History Month series, we focus on journals published by IU Press to further your understanding of African American and African studies.

Spectrum: A New Journal on Black Masculinities

We recently partnered with the Department of African American and African Studies at The Ohio State University to publish this important and timely new journal. Spectrum covers both historic and current issues faced by Black men, and recognizes, documents, and features the positive and unique features and iterations of Black manhood and masculinities, as well as the various roles that they play globally in society.

Read more or subscribe to this journal.

Transition 109

Many of the artists featured in Transition 109 "Persona" make their livings making themselves up. For these performance artists, persona shades into personality, and their theatrics don’t seem so different from the daily wardrobe decisions of metalheads in Botswana, or, at the other end of the spectrum, the highly tuned persona, personality, and apotheosis of personhood that is Oprah herself. As Ms. Winfrey might say, you are your hardest role yet. The craft of the self is unmasked in this issue, revealing the sleight of hand at play in Paul Laurence Dunbar’s famous words: “We wear the mask.” There’s a special ring to it in the African diaspora.

Read more or subscribe to this journal.

Black Camera 4.1 Close-up: Precious

Guest edited by Suzette Spencer

In Volume 4, number 1, of Black Camera, the “Close-Up” section is devoted to a critical assessment of and about the film Precious and the novel Push by Sapphire (upon which Precious is based.) Precious has garnered several accolades, notably Oscars (2010) for acting and screenwriting and numerous distinctions for directing.

Spencer has collected essays that pivot between and extend beyond the formal frames of both the film and the novel and that stage intertextual and comparative dialogues with related works of film, literature, visual culture, photography, or theory. Together, the essays and commentaries take up an assemblage of distinctively theorized formations and gendered subjectivities, at once historical and contemporary.

Read more or subscribe to this journal.

African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review (ACPR) Volume 2 Issue 2

Special Issue: West African Research Association Peace Initiative Conference in Sierra Leone (2010) and Cape Verde (2011)

Guest edited by Steven Howard

The articles in this issue of African Conflict and Peacebuilding Review were selected from those presented at two conferences sponsored by the West African Research Association (WARA). West Africa, the setting for both conferences, is the site of religious diversity if not conflict, in every country of the region and most of its corners. The papers published here try to examine the capacity that communities across the continent have for peace and reconciliation. In particular, the papers examine the way religious institutions foster reconciliation and peacebuilding and the critical role of media in consolidating peace.

Read more or subscribe to this journal.

Research in African Literatures Vol. 43, No. 4, Winter 2012

Special Issue: Measuring Time: Karin Barber and the Study of Everyday Africa

Guest edited by Onookome Okome and Stephanie Newell

This special issue of Research in African Literatures celebrates Karin Barber, a scholar who is marked by, to quote Okpewho, an intellectual attitude committed to exploring an idea until a “solid book on it” comes forth. Indeed, Barber’s “efforts are primarily beholden to intellectual history and a larger life of the mind”. This special issue is dedicated to reexamining one of the finest and most influential essays she has published to date, “Popular Arts in Africa” (1987), and to considering the current scholarly field of African popular arts.

Read more or subscribe to this journal.

Other journals of interest:

Africa Today is at the forefront in publishing Africanist, reform-minded research. Read more

Meridians provides a forum for the finest scholarship and creative work by and about women of color in US and international contexts. Read more

Reading selections for Black History Month: Part 2, Jazz in America

Part 2 of our Black History Month series continues today with readings about jazz in America. Two of our books focus on the lives and careers of influential African American jazz musicians Billy Taylor and David Baker.

Second Wingspread conference of the National Jazz Service Organization, 1986. Billy Taylor, Harold Horowitz, David Baker, and Congressman John Conyers, Jr. Courtesy of David Baker.

In his forthcoming autobiography The Jazz Life of Dr. Billy Taylor (written with Teresa L. Reed), the legendary jazz ambassador discusses his 60+ years in music, from the heyday of jazz on 52nd Street in 1940s New York City to his appearances on CBS Sunday Morning. Taylor fought not only for the recognition of jazz music as "America's classical music" but also for the recognition of black musicians as key contributors to the American music repertoire. In this excerpt, Taylor discusses segregation and his early musical influences.

Read excerpt

Like Taylor, David Baker's musical career was also influenced by segregation. He attended Crispus Attucks High School, an all-black school in Indianapolis, IN, with an excellent music program, to which he attributes much of his success. In this excerpt from David Baker: A Legacy in Music, Lissa May discusses the impact of the Indianapolis music scene and Baker's high school on his musical career.

Read excerpt

IU Press podcast with David Baker and Monika Herzig

In addition to these two profiles of prominent African American jazz musicians, another one of our books looks at a small town record studio with a big place in jazz history. Gennett Records in Richmond, IN, was the site of many historic firsts for African American jazz musicians, including the first interracial recording with Jelly Roll Morton and the New Orleans Rhythm Kings, and Louis Armstrong's first recording with King Oliver's Creole Jazz Band. Author Rick Kennedy traces the colorful history of one of America's most innovative record companies in his newly revised and expanded edition of Jelly Roll, Bix, and Hoagy.

Read excerpt

Book trailer

Our Black History Month series concludes tomorrow with reading selections from our African American and African studies journals.

Related articles

Reading selections for Black History Month: Part 1, Race in America

Podcast: David Baker - A Legacy in Music

Reading selections for Black History Month: Part 1, Race in America

In the first of a three-part series for Black History Month, we examine whether America is a post-racial society since the historic election (and re-election) of Barack Obama, the first African-American president. The authors of two new books argue that we still have a long way to go to achieve racial equality in our country.

In Nation of Cowards, David H. Ikard and Martell Lee Teasley propose that Americans need to talk more about race, and that such a conversation can take place only with passionate and organized pressure from black Americans. They argue that neither Obama nor any political figure is likely to be in the forefront of addressing issues of racial inequality and injustice.

Read excerpt

IU Press podcast

Renowned social justice advocate john a. powell persuasively argues in Racing for Justice that we have not achieved a post-racial society and that there is much work to do to redeem the American promise of inclusive democracy. He challenges us to replace attitudes and institutions that promote and perpetuate social suffering with those that foster relationships and a way of being that transcends disconnection and separation.

Read excerpt

Book trailer

Visit our blog tomorrow for Part 2 of our Black History Month series, focusing on African American jazz musicians and their place in music history.

Related articles

Reading selections for Black History Month: Part 2, Jazz in America

Podcast: Nation of Cowards authors discuss racism in America

Why America is not a post-racial society

john a. powell to discuss 'Racing to Justice' at Conservation Law Foundation

Author john a. powell will give a talk and signing for his book Racing to Justice Monday, January 14 from 4:00 p.m to 5:30 p.m. at the Conservation Law Foundation in Boston, MA. This event is sponsered by The Funders' Network for Smart Growth and Livable Communities. For more information, contact Ruth Goldman. 

Learn more about Racing to Justice in this book trailer:

Books & Books to host signing with john powell

The Books & Books store in Coral Gables, FL will host a book talk and signing with Racing to Justice author john a. powell December 12 at 8 p.m. 

In his book, powell persuasively argues that we have not achieved a post-racial society and that there is much work to do to redeem the American promise of inclusive democracy. Culled from a decade of writing about social justice and spirituality, these meditations on race, identity, and social policy provide an outline for laying claim to our shared humanity and a way toward healing ourselves and securing our future. Learn more about Racing to Justice in this book trailer:

UC Berkeley to host book launch for 'Racing to Justice'

The University of California, Berkeley will host a book launch for john a. powell's Racing to Justice November 7. He will discuss his new book from 4 to 5 p.m. in the Maude Fife Room, 315 Wheeler Hall on the UC Berkeley campus. A reception and booksigning will follow the lecture. 

For more information about Racing to Justice, visit the IU Press website or watch this book trailer: