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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.
Off the Shelf: Revolutionary Readings in Times of Crisis
S2, Episode 1: Ashley Howard on the Black Midwest
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Humanities Research Institute
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Season 2
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Episode 1
Season Two of "Off the Shelf" opens with the fascinating and timely research of Professor Ashley Howard (University of Iowa), a historian whose analysis of 1960s urban rebellions in the Midwest sheds light on contemporary resistance movements to racialized oppression.
Along the way she reminds the listener of the many ways in which the Black Midwestern experience creates or informs the national narrative.
"These major Black cultural moments are being born in the Black Midwest, but they're adopted by America as a whole. When we think of funk, that's coming out of Ohio; we think of house music, that’s coming out of Chicago; Motown, that's Detroit; Langston Hughes, Gwendolyn Brooks, Toni Morrison... All of these kind of canonical Black cultural texts are coming from a Black Midwestern experience."