Cultural Literature

Black Surrealist. Poet. Collage artist. Jazz trumpeter. Painter. Member of the Beat Generation. Life-long wanderer. Pan-Africanist. Black Power agitator. Author of his own "poem-life." Ted Joans (1928-2003) was all of these things, and yet none of these...

A vivid firsthand record of the stain of white supremacy and the outspoken resistance of Black and white Americans who envisioned a better, more just nation W.E.B. Du Bois famously identified "the problem of the color-line" as the defining issue in...

A revelatory first look at the painting practice of artist Lorna Simpson, whose work combines abstraction and figuration to highlight issues of identity and representation Though Lorna Simpson (b. 1960) is perhaps best known as a photographer, this...

From his early self-portraits to his site-specific installations, this volume underscores Rashid Johnson's fearless engagement with the central themes, questions and aesthetics of the contemporary eraCo-organized by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum and...

This exploration of Black dandy fashion and its representation in art and literature highlights the vibrant, complicated legacy of a recognizable yet constantly shifting style, from its origins in Enlightenment Europe to the contemporary art and fashion...

The canonical work of cultural criticism by the "profoundly influential critic" (Artnet), in a beautiful thirtieth-anniversary edition, featuring a new foreword by esteemed visual artist Mickalene Thomas"Sharp and persuasive." --The New York Times Book...

"Darius has always been one of my favorite people to sing with and to call a friend in this industry and yet even knowing him well for as long as I have, there are so many incredible stories in Life's Too Short that I enjoyed learning for the first time...

The astonishing debut monograph from contemporary abstract expressionist painter Genesis TramaineGimme Some Sugar is the much-anticipated first monograph from Genesis Tramaine, the renowned American artist whose star continues to rise in the...

"Karine Jean-Pierre illuminates her path to insider status so others can follow in her footsteps." --Essence "Jean-Pierre inspires us to get involved in politics--every single one of us, no matter where we are from or who we are." --The Atlantic ...

How Black Protestants in Chicago created Ethiopianism, a transnational religious movement against Western imperialism City of Black Souls uncovers the history of how, from the late nineteenth to the mid-twentieth century, Black Protestants in Chicago...

Written by Harriet Ann Jacobs, using the pen name "Linda Brent," Incidents in the Life of a Slave Girl is an in-depth chronological account of Jacobs's life as a slave, and the decisions and choices she made to gain freedom for herself and her children...

At a time of renewed activism, the story of the young people who bravely turned a local issue into a national movement for justice, from a professor of Black studies at Amherst who participated in the Ferguson uprising Stefan M. Bradley was a young...