Broadening the Contours in the Study of Black Politics, volume 17 of the National Political Science Review (NPSR), is divided thematically into two books, available separately or as a set. The first concentrates on the institutional aspects of Black politics. The second book addresses various dimensions of social capital that constitute the fundamental building blocks of Black politics. Each contains peer-reviewed articles, a symposium section, and book reviews, as well as other featured sections.Together, these books build on the previous NPSR volume, Black Women in Politics. The symposium in Volume 17:1 examines the struggle of Black women, both in the political science discipline and in getting their work published. In the symposium section of Volume 17:2, members of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists carry on a revealing conversation about the dilemmas of professional life for Black women in political science.The set also contains a section called "Trends," which offers data to use as starting points for discussions in teaching, on professional panels, or in the mass media, regarding the new versions of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder decision of 2013. Both volumes 17:1 and 17:2 contain rigorously vetted articles on significant themes in the study of Black politics. This set represents the most recent offering in the distinguished National Political Science Review series.

Broadening the Contours in the Study of Black Politics, volume 17 of the National Political Science Review (NPSR), is divided thematically into two books, available separately or as a set. The first concentrates on the institutional aspects of Black politics. The second book addresses various dimensions of social capital that constitute the fundamental building blocks of Black politics. Each contains peer-reviewed articles, a symposium section, and book reviews, as well as other featured sections.Together, these books build on the previous NPSR volume, Black Women in Politics. The symposium in Volume 17:1 examines the struggle of Black women, both in the political science discipline and in getting their work published. In the symposium section of Volume 17:2, members of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists carry on a revealing conversation about the dilemmas of professional life for Black women in political science.The set also contains a section called "Trends," which offers data to use as starting points for discussions in teaching, on professional panels, or in the mass media, regarding the new versions of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder decision of 2013. Both volumes 17:1 and 17:2 contain rigorously vetted articles on significant themes in the study of Black politics. This set represents the most recent offering in the distinguished National Political Science Review series.

Stephen C. Ferguson II provides a philosophical examination of Black popular culture for the first time. From extensive discussion of the philosophy and political economy of Hip-Hop music through to a developed exploration of the influence of the postmodernism-poststructuralist ideology on African American studies, he argues how postmodernism ideology plays a seminal role in justifying the relationship between corporate capitalism and Black popular culture. Chapters cover topics such as cultural populism, capitalism and Black liberation, the philosophy of Hip-Hop music, and Harold Cruse's influence on the “cultural turn” in African American studies. Ferguson combines case studies of past and contemporary Black cultural and intellectual productions with a Marxist ideological critique to provide a cutting edge reflection on the economic structure in which Black popular culture emerged. He highlights the contradictions that are central to the juxtaposition of Black cultural artists as political participants in socioeconomic struggle and the political participants who perform the rigorous task of social criticism. Adopting capitalism as an explanatory framework, Ferguson investigates the relationship between postmodernism as social theory, current manifestations of Black popular culture, and the theoretical work of Black thinkers and scholars to demonstrate how African American studies have been shaped.

This book enters as a corrective to the tendency to trivialize and (mis)appropriate African American language practices. The word ratchet has entered into a wider (whiter) American discourse the same way that many words in African American English have—through hip-hop and social media. Generally, ratchet refers to behaviors and cultural expressions of Black people that sit outside of normative, middle-class respectable codes of conduct. Ratchet can function both as a tool for critiquing bad Black behavior, and as a tool for resisting the notion that there are such things as “good” and “bad” behavior in the first place. This book takes seriously the way ratchet operates in the everyday lives of middle-class and upwardly mobile Black Queer women in Washington, DC who, because of their sexuality, are situated outside of the norms of (Black) respectability. The book introduces the concept of “ratchet/boojie cultural politics” which draws from a rich body of Black intellectual traditions which interrogate the debates concerning what is and is not “acceptable” Black (middle-class) behavior. Placing issues of non-normative sexuality at the center of the conversation about notions of propriety within normative modes of Black middle-class behavior, this book discusses what it means for Black Queer women’s bodies to be present within ratchet/boojie cultural projects, asking what Black Queer women’s increasing visibility does for the everyday experiences of Black queer people more broadly.

Transnational Black Feminism and Qualitative Research invites readers to consider what it means to conduct research within their own communities by interrogating local and global contexts of colonialism, race, and migration. The qualitative data at the centre of this book stem from a yearlong qualitative study of the lived experiences of Black women, who migrated to or spent a significant amount of time in the United States, as well as from the author's experiences as a Black German woman and former international student. It proposes Transnational Black Feminism as a framework in qualitative inquiry. Methodological considerations emerging from and complementary to this framework critically explore qualitative concepts, such as reciprocity, care, and the ethics with which research is conducted, to account for shifts in power dynamics in the research process and to radically work against the dehumanization of participants, their communities, and researchers. This short and accessible book is ideal for qualitative researchers, graduate students, and feminist scholars interested in the various dimensions of racialization, coloniality, language, and migration.

Care-Based Methodologies reimagines relationships between researchers and youth participants in school-based research. The book calls attention to care-based methodologies as essential to qualitative and ethnographic research in schools, particularly when participants are youth from nondominant communities. While researchers come to schools seeking to understand youths' lived experiences and become implicated in the quotidian rhythms of their lives, it is rare that they receive training on how to navigate the complex interpersonal dynamics and relationships that take shape during long-term school research. How can researchers ensure that they care for the wellbeing of youth, not just the stories and data collected from them? How do researchers maneuver the various roles they may come to play in youth's lives over the course of, and beyond, a study with care? What happens when scholars transgress the traditional power dynamics of researcher-participant relationships to walk with youth in their research? This book illustrates the possibilities for conducting rigorous and responsible research that simultaneously improves our understanding of youth's lives, cares for their wellbeing, and works toward dismantling the systems that oppress them. The editors of the volume offer an opening chapter that articulates how researchers can practice care-based methodologies with youth by centering transparency, reflexivity, reciprocity, curiosity, consent, and self-care. The chapters that follow draw from a range of qualitative and ethnographic studies to highlight how care mediates and informs the research process and offer concrete guidance for employing care-based methodologies in school-based studies with youth.

How Black musicians and composers used their craft to define and influence public discourse. This groundbreaking work examines how Black music functions as rhetoric, considering its subject not merely reflective of but central to African American public discourse. Author, musician, and scholar Earl H. Brooks argues that there would have been no Harlem Renaissance, Civil Rights Movement, or Black Arts Movement as we know these phenomena without Black music. Through rhetorical studies, archival research, and musical analysis, Brooks establishes the "sonic lexicon of Black music," defined by a distinct constellation of sonic and auditory features that bridge cultural, linguistic, and political spheres with music. Genres of Black music such as blues and jazz are discursive fields, where swinging, improvisation, call-and-response, blue notes, and other musical idioms serve as rhetorical tools to articulate the feelings, emotions, and states of mind that have shaped African American cultural and political development. Examining the resounding artistry of iconic musicians such as Scott Joplin, Mary Lou Williams, Duke Ellington, John Coltrane, and Mahalia Jackson, this work offers an alternative register in which these musicians and composers are heard as public intellectuals, consciously invested in crafting rhetorical projects they knew would influence the public sphere.

Broadening the Contours in the Study of Black Politics, volume 17 of the National Political Science Review (NPSR), is divided thematically into two books, available separately or as a set. The first concentrates on the institutional aspects of Black politics. The second book addresses various dimensions of social capital that constitute the fundamental building blocks of Black politics. Each contains peer-reviewed articles, a symposium section, and book reviews, as well as other featured sections. Together, these books build on the previous NPSR volume, Black Women in Politics. The symposium in Volume 17:1 examines the struggle of Black women, both in the political science discipline and in getting their work published. In the symposium section of Volume 17:2, members of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists carry on a revealing conversation about the dilemmas of professional life for Black women in political science. The set also contains a section called "Trends," which offers data to use as starting points for discussions in teaching, on professional panels, or in the mass media, regarding the new versions of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder decision of 2013. Both volumes 17:1 and 17:2 contain rigorously vetted articles on significant themes in the study of Black politics. This set represents the most recent offering in the distinguished National Political Science Review series.

Broadening the Contours in the Study of Black Politics, volume 17 of the National Political Science Review (NPSR), is divided thematically into two books, available separately or as a set. The first concentrates on the institutional aspects of Black politics. The second book addresses various dimensions of social capital that constitute the fundamental building blocks of Black politics. Each contains peer-reviewed articles, a symposium section, and book reviews, as well as other featured sections. Together, these books build on the previous NPSR volume, Black Women in Politics. The symposium in Volume 17:1 examines the struggle of Black women, both in the political science discipline and in getting their work published. In the symposium section of Volume 17:2, members of the National Conference of Black Political Scientists carry on a revealing conversation about the dilemmas of professional life for Black women in political science. The set also contains a section called "Trends," which offers data to use as starting points for discussions in teaching, on professional panels, or in the mass media, regarding the new versions of the Voting Rights Act after the Shelby County v. Holder decision of 2013. Both volumes 17:1 and 17:2 contain rigorously vetted articles on significant themes in the study of Black politics. This set represents the most recent offering in the distinguished National Political Science Review series.