I won a teaching award from the Associated Students of Caltech. Grateful to the students that nominated me and all the students who making teaching at Caltech a joy.
(I forgot to take a photo at the ceremony so here’s one in my stairway)
Today is the last day to pre-order BLACK EXCELLENCE with the Penn Press Summer Sale discount! Enter PENN-SUMMER25 at checkout to save 40%!
Official publication on publication date is September 2!
https://t.co/rbPXqnPWdf
Some news! In August, I’ll be joining the Department of History at Georgetown. I’m going to miss Caltech (especially my students) and Pasadena but I’m really looking forward to moving back to the East Coast.
Hopping back on here briefly to share:
The Division of the Humanities and Social Sciences at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) invites applications for one tenure-track position at the assistant professor rank in Asian history... https://t.co/YkjAYwKjiU
We welcome applications from candidates working on the social and/or political history of all geographical regions of Asia broadly construed up to 1900 CE.
One of my favorites is on my water bottle. I also love The Three Degrees’ cover of “Maybe” and Lou Rawls’ live version of “Tobacco Road.”
#BlackMusicMonthChallenge
We love a song with some good talking in it. Begging, pleading, explaining, preaching, reading... give us somebody talking that talk over a music bed and we are thrilled.
For Day 27 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, name a favorite song with a whole entire ass monologue.
Me and my mom were in the car, lost on the way to a birthday party in Brooklyn the weekend after this song came out. Hot 97 played it over and over and over again. My first thought—not as strong as “Work It Out.”
Some songs IMMEDIATELY become a core memory. They grab us so fiercely the first time we hear them, that time, place, moment, etc is locked in from that point on.
For Day 22 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, share a song with the moment of that fist listen still clear in mind.
I’m not really embarrassed by anything I listen to but I was a tiny bit ashamed that Raydio’s “Jack and Jill” was one of my listened to songs of 2021. Love Ray Parker, Jr. though.
#BlackMusicMonthChallenge
We all - especially music snobs & nerds - have guilty pleasures when it comes to what we listen to. The song equivalents of trash tv that are secretly our jams.
For Day 21 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, reveal a song you're embarrassed to admit you rock with.
Let's collectively agree to create a safe space* for today's prompt, amen?
We get older, we get wiser, social norms evolve... but sometimes the bop won't let us go.
For Day 13 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, share song that's still a problematic fave.
*No youknowwho, please
Few do an opening verse better than Smokey Robinson.
“I’ve got a sunshine on a cloudy day
When it’s cold outside, I’ve got the month of May”
#BlackMusicMonth
Some songs grab us from the jump... the very first lyrics or bars have us belting along at the top of our lungs, sometimes with our face scrunched up in that way great music requires.
For Day 11 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, share a favorite opening verse of any genre.
B-Sides, deep cuts, joints that got play regionally but were never officially added at radio... We all have fave songs that we thing the label overlooked or slept on.
For Day 7 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, share an album cut that should have been a single.
Live recordings are an art. Sometimes, artists change a song for live performance but lose something that you loved in the original. But sometimes the elevate it and improve on it.
For Day 6 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, share a favorite live version of a song.
For me, music connects on a cellular level. It evokes emotion, it generates energy, it boosts adrenaline, it soothes, it comforts...it's transformative.
For Day 5 of the #BlackMusicMonthChallenge, share a song that you go to in order to ease your mind or change your mood.