Uploaded June 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 day ago
Watch more Left of Black: https://fhi.duke.edu/engagement/left-black/
Picture celebrated authors Toni Morrison and Alice Walker getting together with famed playwright and actress Ntozake Shange at the poet and essayist June Jordan’s Brooklyn apartment to be fed Jamaican gumbo and champagne while talking about their work. Now imagine Prof. Audre Lorde, critically acclaimed writers Paule Marshall & Margo Jefferson, and other Black feminists joining in! This "Sisterhood" was a cohort of some of the brightest minds focused on liberation through the lens of Black feminism, which included space for queer identity, that transformed American writing and cultural institutions.
"The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture" is the latest book from Dr. Courtney Thorsson, Associate Professor of African American literature at the University of Oregon. She joins host Dr. Mark Anthony Neal to discuss her new work, published by Columbia University Press.
Find her new book here: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-sisterhood/9780231204729
Learn more about Prof. Thorsson here: courtneythorsson.com
Left of Black is the Webby Award-nominated series featuring interviews with Black Studies scholars, created and hosted by the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. From 2010-2020, it was produced by the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Global Studies. In 2020, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute took over production, with funding support from Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
Directed & edited by Eric Barstow, M.F.A.
Assistant editing by Jakiah Glass
Watch more Left of Black: https://fhi.duke.edu/engagement/left-black/
Picture celebrated authors Toni Morrison and Alice Walker getting together with famed playwright and actress Ntozake Shange at the poet and essayist June Jordan’s Brooklyn apartment to be fed Jamaican gumbo and champagne while talking about their work. Now imagine Prof. Audre Lorde, critically acclaimed writers Paule Marshall & Margo Jefferson, and other Black feminists joining in! This "Sisterhood" was a cohort of some of the brightest minds focused on liberation through the lens of Black feminism, which included space for queer identity, that transformed American writing and cultural institutions.
"The Sisterhood: How a Network of Black Women Writers Changed American Culture" is the latest book from Dr. Courtney Thorsson, Associate Professor of African American literature at the University of Oregon. She joins host Dr. Mark Anthony Neal to discuss her new work, published by Columbia University Press.
Find her new book here: https://cup.columbia.edu/book/the-sisterhood/9780231204729
Learn more about Prof. Thorsson here: courtneythorsson.com
Left of Black is the Webby Award-nominated series featuring interviews with Black Studies scholars, created and hosted by the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies Dr. Mark Anthony Neal. From 2010-2020, it was produced by the John Hope Franklin Center for International and Global Studies. In 2020, the John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute took over production, with funding support from Trinity College of Arts & Sciences.
Directed & edited by Eric Barstow, M.F.A.
Assistant editing by Jakiah Glass
