New Books in the American South

By: New Books Network
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  • Summary

  • Interviews with scholars of the American South about their new books. Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south
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Episodes
  • Benjamin Barson, "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons" (Wesleyan UP, 2024)

    Benjamin Barson, "Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons" (Wesleyan UP, 2024)
    Nov 19 2024
    Brassroots Democracy: Maroon Ecologies and the Jazz Commons (Wesleyan UP, 2024) recasts the birth of jazz, unearthing vibrant narratives of New Orleans musicians to reveal how early jazz was inextricably tied to the mass mobilization of freedpeople during Reconstruction and the decades that followed. Benjamin Barson presents a "music history from below," following the musicians as they built communes, performed at Civil Rights rallies, and participated in general strikes. Perhaps most importantly, Barson locates the first emancipatory revolution in the Americas—Haiti—as a nexus for cultural and political change in nineteenth-century Louisiana. In dialogue with the work of recent historians who have inverted traditional histories of Latin American and Caribbean independence by centering the influence of Haitian activists abroad, this work traces the impact of Haitian culture in New Orleans and its legacy in movements for liberation. Brassroots Democracy demonstrates how Black musicians infused participatory music practice with innovative forms of grassroots democracy. Late nineteenth-century Black brass bands and activists rehearsed these participatory models through collective performance that embodied the democratic ethos of Black Reconstruction. Termed "Brassroots Democracy," this fusion of political and musical spheres revolutionized both. Brassroots Democracy illuminates the Black Atlantic struggles that informed music-as-world-making from the Haitian Revolution through Reconstruction to the jazz revolution. The work theorizes the roots of the New Orleans brass band tradition in the social relations grown in maroon ecologies across the Americas. Their fruits contributed to the socio-sonic commons of the music we call jazz today BENJAMIN BARSON is a historian, baritone saxophonist, and political activist. He is an assistant professor of music at Bucknell University. His work has been published in Black Power Afterlives: The Enduring Significance of the Black Panther Party (2020), Routledge Handbook on Jazz and Gender (2021) and Routledge Guide to Ecosocialism (2021). Morteza Hajizadeh is a Ph.D. graduate in English from the University of Auckland in New Zealand. His research interests are Cultural Studies; Critical Theory; Environmental History; Medieval (Intellectual) History; Gothic Studies; 18th and 19th Century British Literature. YouTube channel. Twitter. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south
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    1 hr and 8 mins
  • D. Andrew Johnson, "Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)

    D. Andrew Johnson, "Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina" (Johns Hopkins UP, 2024)
    Nov 18 2024
    In 1708, the governor of South Carolina responded to a request from London to provide a detailed account of the colony's population. Among the groups included in this report was an often-overlooked segment—Native Americans, who comprised roughly a quarter of the colony’s enslaved population. However, not long after, references to enslaved Native people largely disappeared from the historical record. In Enslaved Native Americans and the Making of Colonial South Carolina (Johns Hopkins University Press, 2024), D. Andrew Johnson argues that Native Americans played a pivotal role in shaping South Carolina's economy and culture. Through extensive research, including a database of over 15,000 references to enslaved individuals, Dr. Johnson employs an interdisciplinary approach to expand the historical narrative and center the experiences of enslaved Native people. In addition to his archival work, he uses spatial analysis and archaeological evidence to explore Native slavery within the context of plantation life. While much of their impact was erased from mainstream history, the contributions of enslaved Native people were evident in the agricultural technologies they introduced, their influence on Creole culture, and the wealth and power amassed by early colonists as a result of their labor. D. Andrew Johnson is a historian of early-modern America and the Atlantic. He is the coeditor of Atlantic Environments and the American South. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south
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    41 mins
  • We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance

    We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance
    Nov 14 2024
    Today’s book is: We Refuse: A Forceful History of Black Resistance (Seal Press, 2024) by Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson. Black resistance to white supremacy is often reduced to a simple binary, between Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s nonviolence and Malcolm X’s “by any means necessary.” In We Refuse, historian Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson urges us to move past this false choice, offering an unflinching examination of the breadth of Black responses to white oppression, particularly those pioneered by Black women. The dismissal of “Black violence” as an illegitimate form of resistance is itself a manifestation of white supremacy, a distraction from the insidious, unrelenting violence of structural racism. Force—from work stoppages and property destruction to armed revolt—has played a pivotal part in securing freedom and justice for Black people since the days of the American and Haitian Revolutions. But violence is only one tool among many. Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson examines other, no less vital tactics that have shaped the Black struggle, from the restorative power of finding joy in the face of suffering to the quiet strength of simply walking away. Clear-eyed, impassioned, and ultimately hopeful, We Refuse offers a fundamental corrective to the historical record, a love letter to Black resilience, and a path toward liberation. Our guest is: Dr. Kellie Carter Jackson, who is the Michael and Denise Kellen ’68 Associate Professor and Chair of Africana Studies at Wellesley College. Her book Force and Freedom was a finalist for the Frederick Douglass Book Prize and the Museum of African American History Stone Book Award. She is the cohost of the Radiotopia podcast “This Day in Esoteric Political History.” She lives outside of Boston with her husband and three children. Our host is: Dr. Christina Gessler, the producer of the Academic Life podcast. She holds a PhD in history, which she uses to explore what stories we tell and what happens to those we never tell. Playlist for listeners: This discussion of the book Remembering Lucille with Dr. Polly Bugros McLean This discussion of the book Running From Bondage The Social Constructions of Race: A Discussion with Dr. Brigette Fielder This discussion of the book Never Caught with Dr. Erica Armstrong Dunbar This discussion of the book Black Woman on Board with Dr. Nicol Welcome to Academic Life, the podcast for your academic journey—and beyond! You can support the show by posting, assigning or sharing episodes. Join us again to learn from more experts inside and outside the academy, and around the world. Missed any of the 225+ Academic Life episodes? You’ll find them all archived here. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://newbooksnetwork.supportingcast.fm/american-south
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    55 mins

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