Episode 92: Rhae Lynn Barnes and the Writing Advice She Didn't Take

In this episode, host Kate Carpenter is joined by Dr. Rhae Lynn Barnes to talk about book Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment. Rhae Lynn is an assistant professor of history at Princeton University. With meticulous research and piles of evidence, Darkology reveals the widespread and persistent use of amateur blackface minstrelsy across the United States from the Civil War through the early 2000s. Rhae Lynn is also the co-editor of three books, the founder of open-access teaching resource U.S. History Scene, and was featured in and served as an executive advisor for the PBS documentary series Reconstruction.

Researching and writing Darkology took a stunning amount of research, as well as a mental toll, and I'm grateful to Rhae Lynn for talking about how she grappled with all of it, the unusual challenges she faced when thinking about visuals for the book, and much more. Plus, she shares some excellent wisdom for how to keep going even when it seems too hard, or when you don't feel like you belong.

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Mentioned in this episode:

• Rhae Lynn Barnes, Darkology: Blackface and the American Way of Entertainment
• Rhae Lynn Barnes, Keri Leigh Merritt, and Yohuru Williams, eds., After Life: A Collective History of Loss and Redemption in Pandemic America
• Rhae Lynn Barnes and Catherine Clinton, eds., Roe v. Wade: Fifty Years After
• Rhae Lynn Barnes and Glenda Goodman, eds., American Contact: Objects of Intercultural Encounters and the Boundaries of Book History
• Rhae Lynn Barnes, "Yes, politicians wore blackface. It used to be all-American 'fun.'" The Washington Post
• Maya Angelou's 1992 commencement address at Spelman College, in which she tells her audience "bring your people with you"
• Sandra Cisneros, "I Hate the Iowa Writers Workshop"

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