March 27, 2024

Laura E. Helton on Scattered and Fugitive Things

In Scattered and Fugitive Things, Laura E. Helton tells the stories of six Black collectors who played a pivotal role in shaping the early twentieth-century Black archive. From the parlors of the urban North to HBCU reading rooms and branch...

March 26, 2024

Reckoning the Fire:

Seven Themes to Consider When Reading Firekeeper

Katłıà

Firekeeper is a coming-of-age story centered on a young woman who finds herself on a reserve as a firekeeper after an unsettling childhood. As we celebrate the contributions of women throughout history, Katłıà’s storytelling invites readers to reflect on what...

March 20, 2024

The Untold History of Women’s Death by Laughter

Maggie Hennefeld

“Those who do not remember the joke are doomed to continue laughing at it.” —An unidentified feminist philosopher. What is the funniest joke you’ve ever heard? And have you ever laughed so hard you thought you might explode? In 1907,...

March 13, 2024

The Subtle Art of Messaging:

How Far-Right Women Use Social Media to Shape Public Opinion

Eviane Leidig

Eviane Leidig demonstrate that far-right women have been at the forefront of legitimizing and normalizing extremist ideas for mainstream appeal.

March 8, 2024

International Women’s Day:

Remembering Mary C. McCall Jr. and the Unfinished Battle for Women’s Rights

J. E. Smyth

It’s International Women’s Day, and women’s rights are being rolled back all over the world, perhaps, mostly notably, in the country that hosted the first International Women’s Day in 1909—the United States. Globally, women still make less money per hour...

March 1, 2024

Wendy Steiner on The Beauty of Choice

In The Beauty of Choice, the renowned cultural critic Wendy Steiner offers a dazzling new account of aesthetics grounded in female agency. Through a series of linked meditations on canonical and contemporary literature and art, she casts women’s taste as...

February 28, 2024

Lucy Diggs Slowe on Black Women, the Role of the University, and Democracy

Amy Yeboah Quarkume

Lucy Diggs Slowe (1885–1937) was one of the most remarkable and accomplished figures in Black women’s higher education. Her story is one of resilience, activism, and relentless determination to overcome barriers. She defied societal limitations to become a pioneering educator...

February 26, 2024

Sandhya Shukla on Cross-Cultural Harlem: Reimagining Race and Place

Cross-Cultural Harlem: Reimagining Race and Place, proposes an understanding of Harlem as a place where peoples of different backgrounds collide, interact, and borrow from each other—and cross the borders of ethnic and racial identities and community enclaves in the process....

February 21, 2024

Q&A: Najha Zigbi-Johnson on Mapping Malcolm

Mapping Malcolm is a collection of essays, conversations, and works of art that reinscribes Malcolm X’s memory and legacy across the built environment, forms of contemporary community building, and Black freedom movements as they continue to manifest across New York...

February 14, 2024

Beyond the Famous Few:

Five Women Who Shaped Black History and Literature

Courtney Thorsson

One Sunday afternoon in February 1977, Toni Morrison, Alice Walker, Ntozake Shange, and several other Black women writers met at June Jordan’s Brooklyn apartment to eat gumbo, drink champagne, and talk about their work. Calling themselves “The Sisterhood,” the group—which...

February 9, 2024

15 Must-Read Books for Black History Month 2024

This month, we come together to celebrate the achievements of African Americans and to recognize their roles in shaping U.S. history and culture. This year, we invite you on a journey of discovery through these rich narratives and scholarly works....

February 7, 2024

Black Life in a Nazi Internment Camp:

The Art of Josef Nassy

Sarah Phillips Casteel

In July 1947, an exhibition of artworks created in Nazi concentration and internment camps was mounted in railway cars stationed in Brussels’s Gare du Nord. Included in the exhibition were several works by Josef Nassy, an artist from the Dutch...