S2, Episode 3: Charisse Burden-Stelly Artwork

Off the Shelf: Revolutionary Readings in Times of Crisis

"Off the Shelf: Revolutionary Readings in Times of Crisis" is a podcast series featuring in-depth conversations with Black scholars on the University of Illinois campus and beyond. Each episode explores books and scholars they recommend we take “off the shelf” to help us understand these revolutionary times and creative agendas for the here and now. Hosted by Dr. Augustus Wood, a scholar of political economy and gentrification, labor, and social movements in late 20th and early 21st century African American urban history.

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Off the Shelf: Revolutionary Readings in Times of Crisis

S2, Episode 3: Charisse Burden-Stelly

March 02, 2022 • Humanities Research Institute • Season 2 • Episode 3

“You're responsible for one whole bookshelf of mine,” Augustus Wood declares at one point in his interview of Dr. Charisse Burden-Stelly, who takes listeners through a rich list of works and thinkers that have informed her scholarship. Walter Rodney, Patricia Rodney, Winston James, Claudia Jones, Safiya Bukhari, and William Alphaeus Hunton are just a few she highlights, pointing out that some may be less known because of what she terms “intellectual McCarthyism.”

The author and editor of numerous publications herself—including the recent W.E.B. Du Bois: A Life in American History (with co-author Gerald Horne), Organize, Fight, Win, and the forthcoming Black Scare/Red Scare—Burden-Stelly elucidates the deep-rooted, longstanding connections between antiblackness and antiradicalism, and offers a thoughtful take on the state of Black Studies today.

View the show notes and transcript.