Left of Black S10:E11
Courtney R. Baker on Images of African American Suffering and Death
Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal (@NewBlackMan) is joined in the studio by Dr. Courtney R. Baker (DrProfBlackLady), an associate professor in the Department of English at the University of California, Riverside. She is the author of Humane Insight: Looking at Images of African American Suffering and Death (University of Illinois Press, 2015), which “questions the relationship between the spectator and victim and urges viewers to move beyond the safety of the "gaze" to cultivate a capacity for humane insight toward representations of human suffering. Utilizing the visual studies concept termed the "look," Baker interrogates how the notion of humanity was articulated and recognized in oft-referenced moments within the African American experience: the graphic brutality of the 1834 Lalaurie affair; the photographic exhibition of lynching, Without Sanctuary; Emmett Till's murder and funeral; and the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina.”
