“African American intellectual history is the act of really thinking seriously about Black people as thinkers.”
In This Episode
Peter N. Miller speaks to Brandon R. Byrd, historian of Black intellectual and social history, about the scope of intellectual history, the “rise” of Black intellectual history, and the urgent necessity to incorporate stories and knowledges that have been left out of the field. Through lively and deliberate intellectual exchange, Byrd and Miller explore a discipline in flux.
Download a transcript of episode 9.
Brandon R. Byrd is a historian of nineteenth- and twentieth-century Black intellectual and social history, with a special focus on Black internationalism. His book, The Black Republic: African Americans and the Fate of Haiti (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2020), recovers a crucial and overlooked chapter of Black internationalism and political thought by exploring the attitudes that US Black intellectuals in the post-Civil War era held toward Haiti. Dr. Byrd teaches history at Vanderbilt University and he is also the co-editor of the Black Lives and Liberation series published by Vanderbilt University Press.
References
- Peter N. Miller
- Brandon R. Byrd 1, 2
- Department of History at Vanderbilt University
- Frederick Douglass
- W.E.B. Du Bois
- The Black Republic
- Brenda Gayle Plummer
- Gerald Horne
- The Rise of African American Intellectual History
- Souls of Black Folk 1, 2
- CLR James
- The Black Jacobins
- Brittney Cooper 1, 2
- African American Intellectual History Society
- Annales
- History of Mentalities
- Italian Microhistory
- Lawrence Levine
- Towards an Intellectual History of Black Women
- Toussaint L’Ouverture
- Williamson County Historical Society
- Mariah Reddick
- Emanuel Ringelblum
- Marisa Fuentes
- Jessica Marie Johnson
- Cedric Robinson
- Peter James Hudson
- Charisse Burden-Stelly
The Fields of the Future podcast amplifies the voices and highlights the work of scholars, artists, and writers who are injecting new narratives into object-centered thinking. Join us for engaging conversations between BGC faculty and fellows and their guests.
