This is Ashley Newby and you’re listening to The Black Studies podcast, a Mellon grant sponsored series of conversations examining the history of the field. Our conversations engage with a wide range of activists and scholars - senior figures in the field, late doctoral students, and everyone in between, culture workers, and political organizers - in order to explore the cultural and political meaning of Black Studies as an area of inquiry and its critical methods.

Today's conversation is with Davarian Baldwin, Raether Distinguished Professor in the Department of American Studies and founding director of the Smart Cities Research Lab at Trinity College. He is the award-winning author of several books, most recently In the Shadow of the Ivory Tower: How Universities are Plundering Our Cities and worked as the consultant and text author for The World of the Harlem Renaissance: A Jigsaw Puzzle. In addition to teaching and writing, Baldwin has served in the national leadership of the American Association of University Professors and Scholars for Social Justice and sits on several editorial boards including the Journal of African American History and Souls: A Critical Journal of Black Politics, Culture and Society. His commentaries and opinions have been featured in numerous outlets from NBC News, BBC, and HULU to USA Today, The Washington Post, and TIME magazine. Baldwin was named a 2022 Freedom Scholar by the Marguerite Casey Foundation for his work in racial and economic justice.