Uploaded June 2026 | Updated September 2026, 2 weeks ago
There is a long-running debate in scholarship about whether African cultural practices survived the Middle Passage — whether enslaved people were able to hold onto anything from the cultures they were taken from. Dr. Reighan Gilliam, Associate Professor of Latin American, Latino & Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College, who studies Afro-Brazilian media and diaspora, thinks Sinners makes an argument in that debate. In this episode, she shows how the film's music, dance, and healing practices are evidence of living African heritage in the American South — and why the fact that a Black director made a film this specific, this successful, and this Black is itself an act of resistance. This episode is hosted by Dr. Brittney Frantece, Thurgood Marshall Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College, and is produced by the Dartmouth Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life in collaboration with the Dartmouth Media Production Group.
There is a long-running debate in scholarship about whether African cultural practices survived the Middle Passage — whether enslaved people were able to hold onto anything from the cultures they were taken from. Dr. Reighan Gilliam, Associate Professor of Latin American, Latino & Caribbean Studies at Dartmouth College, who studies Afro-Brazilian media and diaspora, thinks Sinners makes an argument in that debate. In this episode, she shows how the film's music, dance, and healing practices are evidence of living African heritage in the American South — and why the fact that a Black director made a film this specific, this successful, and this Black is itself an act of resistance. This episode is hosted by Dr. Brittney Frantece, Thurgood Marshall Postdoctoral Fellow, Department of African and African American Studies, Dartmouth College, and is produced by the Dartmouth Institute for Black Intellectual and Cultural Life in collaboration with the Dartmouth Media Production Group.
