English majors and Career Preparation

Notes from the Modern Language Association's “Report on English Majors’ Career Preparation and Outcomes.” 

Script by Howard Rambsy II 

Voiceover by Kassandra Timm 

Whiteboard animation by Sierra Taylor

 

Related: 

• English majors and Career Preparation (podcast episode)

• English majors and Career Preparation (transcription)

• A checklist of videos & whiteboard animations

A Brief on Invisible Man

A summary and artistic take on the opening of Invisible Man. 

Storyboard by Nicole Dixon. 

Voiceover by Kassandra Timm 

Whiteboard animation by Camela Sharp 

Related: 

• A checklist of videos & whiteboard animations

The Remarkable Reception of The Underground Railroad

A brief take on the reception of Colson Whitehead's powerful and ultimately award-winning novel, which was adapted into a series for Amazon Prime.

 

Related: 

• A checklist of videos & whiteboard animations

Blogging about poetry in September 2024

[Related content: Blogging about Poetry]

• September 5: Spike Lee vs. Amiri Baraka

• September 4: A Defining Book on the Black Arts Movement

• September 1: Blogging about Poetry in August 2024

Data Storytelling and the UNCF-Mellon Program

By Howard Rambsy and Kenton Rambsy

Established in 1989, the UNCF/Mellon Program for undergraduates was designed to strengthen the number of qualified faculty in the academy. More than 160 UNCF-Mellon Fellows have earned PhDs. Still, not enough stories have been told the success of the program. 

In an upcoming presentation, we plan to highlight aspects of the program using data storytelling.

Links

• The Spence Tree: Charting UNCF-Mellon PhDs and EdDs

• UNCF-Mellon & Career Possibilities

• The Diverse Career Paths of UNCF Mellon Fellows

• Transforming Academia: The Impact of Mellon Fellows from HBCUs

• Tracking 21 Books by UNCF-Mellon Fellows

• UNCF-Mellon English Majors & PhDs

A Data Visualization of Amy Sherald's paintings

A visualization of Amy Sherald's paintings 

A Roundup of Novels by Black Writers, 2014 - 2024

Here's a roundup of novels published since 2014. As always, it's a partial list.

[Related: The Beginnings of a Black Novel Timeline, 2014 - 2024 (coming soon)]

2024 

• The American Daughters by Maurice Carlos Ruffin
• James by Percival Everett
• A Love Song for Ricki Wilde by Tia Williams
• Long After We Are Gone by Terah Shelton Harris
• Faebound by Saara El-Arifi
• Ours by Phillip B. Williams
• The Queen of Sugar Hill--A Novel of Hattie McDaniel by ReShonda Tate

2023 

• Crook Manifesto by Colson Whitehead
• Let Us Descend by Jesmyn Ward
• Every Man a King—A King Oliver Novel by Walter Mosley 

• The Heaven & Earth Grocery Store by James McBride
• The Fraud by Zadie Smith
• Lone Women by Victor LaValle
• Chain-Gang All-Stars by Nana Kwame Adjei-Brenyah

• The Unsettled by Ayana Mathis
• A Spell of Good Things by Ayobami Adebayo
• Dangerous Love by Ben Okri
• All the Sinners Bleed by S. A. Cosby
• The Reformatory by Tananarive Due
• Hide by Tracy Clark
• Family Lore by Elizabeth Acevedo
• River Spirit by Leila Aboulela
• The Mystery at Dunvegan Castle by Tendai Huchu
• Black Candle Women by Diane Marie Brown
• An Autobiography of Skin by Lakiesha Carr
• The House of Eve by Sadeqa Johnson
• The Survivalists by Kashana Cauley
• You Never Know by Connie Briscoe
• Maame by Jessica George
• House of Cotton by Monica Brashears
• The Art of Scandal by Regina Black
• Liquid Snakes by Stephen Kearse
• Blue Hour by Tiffany Clarke Harrison
• Gone Like Yesterday by Janelle M. Williams
• Symphony of Secrets by Brendan Slocumb
• Goodbye Earl by Leesa Cross-Smith
• The New Naturals by Gabriel Bump
• Promise by Rachel Eliza Griffiths
• Night Wherever We Go: A novel by Tracey Rose Peyton
• No One Dies Yet by Kobby Ben Ben
• Last Seen in Lapaz by Kwei Quartey
• The Wildest Sun by Asha Lemmie
• Decent People by De'Shawn Charles Winslow
• Token by Beverly Kendall
• Time's Undoing by Cheryl A. Head
• Teeth, Claws, and Blood Red Heart by Fiona Zedde
• Lucky Gril by Irene Muchemi-Ndiritu
• Splinter--A Diverse Sleep Hollow Retelling by Jasper Hyde

Farah Jasmine Griffin, Amiri Baraka, and Collegiate Black Men

I was recently re-reading the section in Farah Jasmine Griffin's Read Until You Understand (2021) where she's talking about her early encounters with Toni Morrison's work. Griffin was 13 when she first read Sula (1973). Can you imagine that -- reading Sula at 13? 

This past Thursday, I did something I've done each fall for nearly 25 years in a row: I introduced students to Amiri Baraka performing his poem "Dope." 

When the poem ended, I posed a question to the class of 60 first-year collegiate Black men. "What if you had encountered Baraka in high school or even middle school, who would you be then?" 

After becoming exposed to to Morrison's work at an early age, we saw what happen to Griffin. She became one of our leading scholars of Black literature. So what would've happened to us if we stumbled upon Baraka performing "Dope"? 

The guys and I had a good time imagining possibilities. Among other things, we acknowledged that we all would thought of literature a lot differently. Guys acknowledged that they would've been less inclined to refer to poetry as boring, if they had been exposed to Baraka. 

One student noted that he would've started thinking about and asking questions about Black people and African history. He focused in particular on Baraka's assertion that someone "killed lumumba." "Who's Lumumba, and why was he killed?" some of the students wanted to know.   

Related:

• Covering Amiri Baraka's "Dope" with Collegiate Black Men (2022)

• Twenty-two years covering Amiri Baraka's "Dope" (2021)

• When Print, Performance & Online Cultures Converge: Amiri Baraka's "Dope" (2011)

• A Notebook on the work of Amiri Baraka