University of Illinois Press has always prided ourselves on our commitment to social justice. In light of the recent events in Charlottesville, here are 8 books and journals for understanding systemic […]
Category: black studies
“Beyond Respectability” on NPR
Brittney C. Cooper’s new book Beyond Respectability: The Intellectual Thought of Race Women was recently reviewed on NPR! The reviewer described it “a work of crucial cultural study. . . . […]
Backlist Bop: Black power in its many forms
Despite the growing scholarly interest in the civil rights movement, to date there has been no comprehensive examination of the Black Power movement. Black Power in the Belly of the […]
Funk the Power, Funk the Erotic
“We have just witnessed a spectacular demonstration of the failures of a national, political imagination. Many of us feel devastated, afraid, and confused. There is no better time than this […]
Sa-lute! Congratulations to music scholar Robert M. Marovich
Awards season in academic publishing is once again kind to the Press. A City Called Heaven: Chicago and the Birth of Gospel Music by Robert M. Marovich recently won a […]
A Brazil syllabus
It has been and remains a tumultuous time in Brazil. Of course there was the Rio Olympics, which some feared would fall into debacle under the chaos of the Zika […]
Throwbacklist Thursday
It’s been awhile since I could legitimately sing, “Give me a head with hair/long, beautiful hair.” But the Cowsills, via America’s tribal love-rock musical, expressed the importance of the streamin’, flaxen, […]
Fannie Barrier Williams celebrated
Progressive Era activist and reformer Fannie Barrier Williams was one of the most prominent educated African American women of her generation. A new effort to honor the woman who was a prominent spokesperson […]
Happy birthday, Eugene Kinckle Jones
Social activist and influential executive secretary of the National Urban League Eugene Kinckle Jones was born on July 30, 1885. Felix L. Armfield‘s biography Eugene Kinckle Jones: The National Urban League […]
Release Party: The Street Is My Pulpit
Hip-hop artist Juliani, born Julius Owino, is one of contemporary Kenya’s major music figures. In the new University of Illinois Press release The Street Is My Pulpit, Mwenda Ntarangwi explores […]
Q&A with Painting the Gospel author Kymberly Pinder
Kymberly N. Pinder is Dean of the College of Fine Arts at the University of New Mexico. Her book Painting the Gospel: Black Public Art and Religion in Chicago explores the […]
Alan Harper’s blues odyssey
Alan Harper left his home in England in 1979 on a pilgrimage to find the blues. His journey led him to Chicago where he worked at a sandwich restaurant and […]