Biographers International Organization

Podcast Episode #114 – Gene Andrew Jarrett

December 30th, 2022

This week we interview Gene Andrew Jarrett, Dean of the Faculty and William S. Tod Professor of English at Princeton University. His latest book, Paul Laurence Dunbar: The Life and Times of a Caged Bird, published in October 2022 by Princeton University Press, examines the Gilded Age writer known as the poet laureate of his race. Jarrett also authored Representing the Race: A New Political History of African American Literature and Deans and Truants: … Read More »

Podcast Episode #108 – Soyica Diggs Colbert

November 18th, 2022

This week we interview Soyica Diggs Colbert, the Idol Family Professor of African American Studies and Performing Arts at Georgetown University. Her book, Radical Vision: A Biography of Lorraine Hansberry, published by Yale University Press in April 2021, was described in the New York Times as a captivating portrait of writer Lorraine Hansberry’s life, art, and political activism. Diggs Colbert’s writing has appeared in the Washington Post, Public Books, Metrograph, and… Read More »

Podcast Episode #102 – Justin Tinsley

October 7th, 2022

This week we interview Justin Tinsley, a senior sports and culture reporter for ESPN’s “The Undefeated.” He has written commentaries and feature stories about people as varied as Marvin Gaye, Malcolm X, James Baldwin, Serena Williams, Cardi B, and Kendrick Lamar. Tinsley is also a regular presence on ESPN’s daily sports talk show, “Around the Horn.” And, he is the host of the “30 for 30” podcast, “The King of Crenshaw,” which explores the legacy… Read More »

Podcast Episode #91 – Tomiko Brown-Nagin

April 22nd, 2022

This week we interview Tomiko Brown-Nagin, author of Civil Rights Queen: Constance Baker Motley and the Struggle for Equality, published by Pantheon in January 2022. Brown-Nagin serves as Dean of Harvard’s Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study, the Daniel P.S. Paul Professor of Constitutional Law at Harvard Law School, and Professor of History at Harvard University’s Faculty of Arts and Sciences. In 2019, she was appointed chair of the Presidential Committee on Harvard and the… Read More »

Podcast Episode #87 – Sheena Harris

February 25th, 2022

This week we interview Sheena Harris, a Woodburn Associate Professor of history and coordinator of the Africana Studies Program at West Virginia University. Previously, she served as an Associate Professor of history and the Inaugural Director of Student Engagement Initiatives at Tuskegee University. She is a first-time biographer and author of Margaret Murray Washington: The Life and Times of a Career Clubwoman, published by the University of Tennessee Press in February 2021. A powerful… Read More »

Podcast Episode #75 – Kevin McGruder

October 16th, 2021

In this week’s episode, we interview Kevin McGruder, Associate Professor of history at Antioch College in Yellow Springs, Ohio. He is a first-time biographer and author of Philip Payton: The Father of Black Harlem, published by Columbia University Press in July 2021. During the 1990s, Kevin McGruder served as the director of real estate development for the Abyssinian Development Corporation, a nonprofit church-based organization in Harlem, and he wrote a book about race and… Read More »