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UnavailableLessie B. Branch, “Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America” (U Massachusetts Press, 2018)
Currently unavailable

Lessie B. Branch, “Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America” (U Massachusetts Press, 2018)

FromNew Books in Political Science


Currently unavailable

Lessie B. Branch, “Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America” (U Massachusetts Press, 2018)

FromNew Books in Political Science

ratings:
Length:
47 minutes
Released:
Aug 17, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode

Description

Optimism at All Costs: Black Attitudes, Activism, and Advancement in Obama’s America (University of  Massachusetts Press, 2018) takes as its point of departure and central preoccupation the notion of “paradoxical ebullience,” by which author Lessie B. Branch means the optimism expressed by African Americans during the presidency of Barack Obama despite a lack of socioeconomic gains (and some notable reversals) during the same period. Branch’s argument around what she considers unwarranted optimism is premised on the idea that during the Obama era, African Americans bought into an elite discourse that was a departure from the discursive norms of the 20th-century Civil Rights movement, and whose leaders discouraged optimism. Both Branch and leaders such as Martin Luther King Jr. see outsized optimism as undermining the collective action necessary for meaningful social change.

Mireille Djenno is the African Studies Librarian at Indiana University. She can be reached at mdjenno@indiana.eduLearn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Released:
Aug 17, 2018
Format:
Podcast episode

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Interviews with Political Scientists about their New Books