Meredith Gadsby - Department of Africana Studies, Oberlin College

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, graduate students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today’s conversation is with Meredith Gadsby, who teaches in the Department of Africana Studies at Oberlin College. Along with essays on migration, literature, and identity, she is the author of Sucking Salt: Caribbean Women Writers, Migration, and Survival (2006) and co-editor of Decolonizing the Academy: African Diaspora Studies (2003). In this conversation, we discuss the politics of Black study inside and outside the academy, the complexity of thinking diaspora, and the place of literary work in Black Studies.

What is The Black Studies Podcast?

The Black Studies Podcast is a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.