Ep. 19: Robin D.G. Kelley on “When Africa Was ‘The Thing’: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times” (2010 Katz Distinguished Lecture)

This episode is part of a special series for 2023-2024 featuring some of our popular talks from the center’s annual Katz Distinguished Lecture series. This month’s episode features Robin D.G. Kelley’s talk from 2010 titled “When Africa Was ‘The Thing’: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times.”

A pathbreaking scholar, prolific writer, and engaged intellectual, Robin D.G. Kelley is Distinguished Professor and Gary B. Nash Endowed Chair in U.S. History at University of California, Los Angeles. He is author of Africa Speaks, America Answers: Modern Jazz in Revolutionary Times published in 2012, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (2009), and Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination (2002), as well as many co-edited books, including Our History Has Always Been Contraband, with Colin Kaepernick and Keeanga-Yamahtta Taylor, published in 2023. Kelley also frequently writes for a wide range of publications, including The Nation, New York Times, Rolling Stone, Callaloo, and Social Text.

The 2023-2024 season of Going Public features select Katz Distinguished Lectures from our archive. Learn more about the lecture series and peruse the archive:

https://simpsoncenter.org/katz-lectures.