Brian Kwoba - Department of History, University of Memphis

This is John Drabinski and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, 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.

Today’s conversation is with Brian Kwoba, who teaches in the Department of History at University of Memphis where he is also the director of African American Studies. Along with a number of scholarly articles, Brian is the author of the new book Hubert Harrison: Forbidden Genius of Black Radicalism, out in 2025 with University of North Carolina Press. In this conversation, we discuss the role of Black Studies sensibilities in the writing of history and the importance of the long story of Black radicalism for the study of Black life.

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.