Black Ephemera

Covers, citations, and samples spill over the boundaries of form and technology in order to differently reveal the irrepressible, transformative Black archive. Neal displays his archeological talents in demonstration of Black music's ability to return, to sustain, and to answer. Vibrating with relation, Black Ephemera reveals the fact of Black genius and the dense possibility of Black forever through those wise and committed enough to listen ~Shana L. Redmond, author of Everything Man: The Form and Function of Paul Robeson

A majestic study of the idea and practice of Black archives. As Mark Anthony Neal analyzes the sonic, digital, literary, and visual, he unveils the power of Black maroon archives, which preserve the opacities, sonic disruptions, and glimpses of possibility that are not meant to be consumed. Black Studies needs this brilliant analysis of the uncontainable wind of Black culture, the wind that blows through open windows. ~Margo Natalie Crawford, author of Black Post-Blackness: The Black Arts Movement and Twenty-First-Century Aesthetics

In Black Ephemera, Neal conducts an impressive symphony of memory work. The digital frontier transformed what an archive looks like, how it functions, where it lives, and who gets access to it … As chapters diverge in theme and latitude, the book assumes the feel of a mixtape. There’s one on the pioneering Memphis record label Stax. There’s another chapter on the distillation of Black women’s trauma through pop culture, and one about how collective Black mourning is produced, shared, and preserved digitally. The whole is an impressive totem, and guide, to the importance of holding on to things forgotten in our haste to the future. ~Wired

Black music is part of the cultural fabric of society, and Neal offers critical insights into how one can think and learn about it. Valuable for artists, archivists, and historians as well as music students and enthusiasts. ~J. T. Pekarek, Indiana University Northwest, CHOICE