Dr. Whit Frazier Peterson

The Image and the Fire Racial identity and literary form in the modernist anthologyThe Image and the Fire examines the coterie anthology—a small, outsider literary collection—a...

Great news! My first academic book, "The Image and the Fire" is now available for pre-order through UMass Press (to appear in May of next year). www.umasspress.com/978162534950...

Ngugi wa Thiong’o, Writer Who Condemned Colonists and Elites, Dies at 87

Here's in honor to the life, work and legacy of Ngũgĩ wa Thiong'o, whose visionary novel "Wizard of the Crow" informed my own novel "Robert Johnson's Freewheeling Jazz Funeral," and whose study "Decolonising the Mind" certainly informs all of my academic work.

www.nytimes.com/2025/05/28/b...

New Issue of Amerikastudien / American Studies is now live. I have an article in it about Du Bois and Higher Education -- an important read in these troubled times where the future of HBCUs is in danger of Trump's recent attempt to take control of them. amst.winter-verlag.de/article/AMST...

Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’ Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siege

Despair in Gaza as Israeli aid blockade creates crisis ‘unmatched in severity’

Palestinians pushed into new misery as supplies of food, fuel and medicine run out in seven-week siege

www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...

I highly recommend making a Spotify playlist from your “Harlem Shuffle” series. Did it for my novel “Harlem Mosaics,” and there is a good one of Kerouac‘s “On the Road” on Spotify already. I also put one together for Amira Baraka‘s “Wise, Why’s, Y’s” as well. Adds a dimension to the text.

"We can react by seeing all of this for what it is, and naming it by name: incipient state terror. We can react by associating ourselves with others who are repressed before we are. Only in solidarity do we affirm law."

1/4. On the White House’s theory, if they abduct you, get you on a helicopter, get to international waters, shoot you in the head, and drop your corpse into the ocean, that is legal, because it is the conduct of foreign affairs.

If the U.S. government is going to take the position that, once removed from the United States, folks can’t be brought back, then it sure seems to me that federal courts should be reflexively and categorically barring *all* removals until they’re 100 percent certain that the removals are lawful.

Bring back *everyone* who was sent from the U.S. to CECOT in El Salvador. *No one* should be sent there. ALL their rights were violated. ALL of them should come home.

Du Bois and the Double-Voiced Speech: Contextualizing Classical Educat <p>A hot-button political question today is that of the so-called classical education, and more specifically whether it is a dog-whistle for white supremacy. The classically educated Black sociologist

I piece I wrote on W.E.B. Du Bois and classical education based on a talk he gave at my alma mater (a western classics type of school), which was just published by American Studies / Amerikastudien: amst.winter-verlag.de/article/AMST...

Hart Crane has these in the first three sections of his long poem
“The Bridge.” I always found them fascinating especially given the musicality of poetry. How do these pull quotes “sound” within the rest of the poem’s music?

Standing in solidarity.. picture is from March 2022 (Freiburg, Germany) but definitely worth a repost now.

Pro-Ukraine protests erupt across US after Trump and Vance ‘ambush’ Zelenskyy Demonstrators surge in Vermont, New York City and Boston after Oval Office debacle with US president and vice-president

Really heartened to hear this is happening and to see the Guardian is covering it. Hopefully a lot of other outlets are as well. Washington DC we need you out there demonstrating too if you ain’t already!: www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...

They really showed their ass.

MacArthur Foundation to increase giving for two years in response to 'crisis' The John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation will increase its giving over the next two years. Its president John Palfrey said the Trump administration’s freeze on federal foreign aid and the now...

Kudos to @jpalfrey.bsky.social and the MacArthur Foundation for stepping up at this critical moment. Increasing foundation giving to fill the gap left by the broken promises and breached contracts of federal funding shows true leadership and compassion. #belovedcommunity
apnews.com/article/maca...

Attend and organize protests. As an American living in Germany, I can say that Europe really needs to see a large opposition to Trump from the American people, or they will assume Americans are mostly all in step.

YouTube video by J. Cole - Topic cLOUDs

New J Cole song “cLOUDs” is hot! Definitely (as always with J Cole) worth giving the lyrics a listen. www.youtube.com/watch?v=eUsQ...

I would also urge people to run for office locally. If I still lived/worked in the US, although I have never wanted to get into politics professionally, I would feel compelled to run for some sort of office right now, or at least join with community activists working local politics.

Some great choices here. I would add: for fiction (1) Ishmael Reed, “Flight to Canada” or Octavia Butler, “Parable of the Sower”; (2) Poetry, Amira Baraka, Sonia Sanchez and Langston Hughes; (3) Political Theory, “Black Power” by Stokely Carmichael and Charles V. Hamilton; (4) Essays, James Baldwin

Can I recommend my own novel about Zora Neale Hurston and Langston Hughes, “Harlem Mosaics”? Publishers Weekly called it “a delight
.” multicanon.com/harlemmosaic...

Fortunately he doesn’t seem to have had much of an effect

Hearing lots of great things about this movie, but hesitant to see another Black trauma film. I have read the book, which was powerful and important, if not my favorite of Whitehead’s books, but curious what folks who have seen (and read) it thought.

Sounds like it could be an article about Europe and America…

No doubt; it is very unsettling being an American in Germany (teaching American Studies no less!) right now. Especially since I side with Europe.

Just getting set up on BlueSky now, although having had the account a couple months now. Figure I might as well at least have a first post, so this self-consciously conscious-of-itself-as-a-first-post post is my first post. Requisite self-promotional link follows: multicanon.com/highjack.html

The album is terrific