Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us
Legacy Russell
May 2024 · Tantor Media Inc · Narrated by Janina Edwards
headphones
Audiobook
4 hr 32 min
Unabridged
family_home
Eligible
info
reportRatings and reviews aren’t verified Learn More
Want a 27 min sample? Listen anytime, even offline.
Add
About this audiobook
Representations of Blackness have always been integral to our understanding of of the modern world. In Black Meme, Legacy Russell, author of Glitch Feminism, explores the construct, culture, and material of the "meme" as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to present day. Mining archival and contemporary media Russell explores the impact of Blackness, Black life, and death on contemporary conceptions of viral culture, borne in the age of the internet. These meditations include: the circulation of Lynching postcards; Jet magazine's publication of a picture of Emmett Till in his open casket; how the televised broadcast of protesters in Selma enters the nation's living room and changed the debate on civil rights; how a citizen-recorded video of the Rodney King beating at the hands of the LAPD became known as the "first viral video"; what the Anita Hill hearings tell us about the media's creation of the Black icon; Tamara Lanier's fight to reclaim the photos of her enslaved ancestors, Renty and Delia, from Harvard's archive; the Facebook Live recording by Lavish "Diamond" Reynolds of the murder of her partner Philando Castile by the police after being stopped for a broken tail light; and more. Legacy Russell explores the power of these tokens and argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form.
About the author
Legacy Russell was born and raised in New York City. She is the executive director and chief curator of The Kitchen. Formerly she was the associate curator of exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem. Her written work, interviews, and essays have been published internationally. Her first book is Glitch Feminism.
Janina Edwards, a graduate of New York University's Tisch Schools of the Arts, recorded her first audiobook in 1987. She is an AudioFile Earphones Award winner, as well as a finalist for the Audie Award. In addition to narrating audiobooks, she is a certified yoga teacher, sings kirtan, and plays the violin.
Rate this audiobook
Tell us what you think.
Listening information
Smartphones and tablets
Install the Google Play Books app for Android and iPad/iPhone. It syncs automatically with your account and allows you to read online or offline wherever you are.
Laptops and computers
You can read books purchased on Google Play using your computer's web browser.
