In this heartfelt and thought-provoking conversation, our panel dives deep into the legacy of Phillis Wheatley—not just as a poet but as a cultural ancestor whose words still echo today. Together, they explore how her work continues to shape Black literature while confronting the historical erasure of Black women writers and the complex ways their stories have been told—or left untold.
Listeners are invited into a powerful dialogue about the tension between visibility and silence, shame and pride, and memory and forgetting. Through personal reflections and academic insights, the speakers share how their own relationships with Wheatley have evolved and what it means to teach her work in classrooms shaped by censorship, skepticism, and cultural loss.
But this isn’t just a story of struggle. It’s also about joy—reimagining historical narratives centered on Black creativity, agency, and pleasure. The conversation honors Wheatley’s poetic brilliance while calling for a future where Black literature is not only preserved but lived, felt, and passed on with purpose.
Whether you're an educator, a reader, or someone discovering Wheatley for the first time, this episode offers a rich and resonant reminder: Storytelling is resistance, remembrance, and restoration.
CREDITS
Cassander Smith - Professor of English at the University of Alabama / Associate Dean for Academic Affairs for the Honors College also at Alabama
Tara Bynum - Associate Professor of English and African American Studies at the University of Iowa.
Don Holmes - Assistant Professor of English at the University of Pittsburgh
READ
Reading Pleasures - Everyday Black Living in Early America, By Tara A. Bynum
Race and Respectability in an Early Black Atlantic, By Cassander L. Smith
TEAM BLK LIT
Jacquees Thomas - HOST & PRODUCER: @_ThatsPeace
Jabari Davis - PRODUCER: @JabariADavis
Jason Torres - PRODUCER: @JNTNY
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