Black Geographies: Spirituality, Food, and Place (w/ Dr. Priscilla McCutcheon)
The guest for this episode is geographer and scholar Dr. Priscilla McCutcheon, who is an Associate Professor of Geography at the University of Kentucky. We discuss the concept of Black geographies and how it shows up in her research on the food work of radical Black religious organizations like the Nation of Islam and the Pan-African Orthodox Christian Church as well as in her archival work studying Fannie Lou Hamer and her connection to the National Council of Negro Women and other more mainstream Black funders.
We dedicate a portion of the episode to talking about "the pork wars," which is my term for the tension in Black communities surrounding whether or not to eat pigs, with all the religious, cultural, regional, and class differences that come to bear on those arguments.
Finally, Dr. McCutcheon offers her take on how modern technologies like social media complicates the public / counterpublic framework of Black political analysis.
Dr. Priscilla McCutcheon’s U Kentucky faculty page: https://geography.as.uky.edu/users/pmc243
Listen to full episode:
Episode Notes:
Black Geographies & The Politics of Place– co editors Katherine McKittrick and Clyde Woods
Nation of Islam
“The Radical Pie That Fueled a Nation”–Rossi Anastopoulo
How to Eat to Live –Elijah Muhammad
Malcolm X film (1992) deleted scene
“In Eastern Kentucky, Whitney Johnson Forages For The TikTok Generation”--Amanda Page (for West Virginia Public Broadcasting)
“Rethinking the Black Public Sphere: An Alternative Vocabulary for Multiple Public Spheres” – Catherine R. Squires, Communication Theory, Volume 12, Issue 4, 1 November 2002
In Search of the Black Fantastic: Politics and Popular Culture in the Post-Civil Rights Era– Richard Iton
Dark Agoras: Insurgent Black Social Life and the Politics of Place – J.T. Roane
“Knuck if You Buck”– Crime Mob ft. Lil’ Scrappy
Their Eyes Were Watching God – Zora Neale Hurston