Recently arrived in the mailbox is this massive, and lavishly illustrated (my own favorites are the shots of Keith & Mendi Obadike, and of George Lewis in performance) book from the Center for Black Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. This volume, edited by Anna Everett and Amber J. Wallace, grows out of two amazing conferences hosted at the Santa Barbara campus, but this is no collection of "proceedings." Rather, the book is a carefully assembled and assiduously critical collection of essays on race and technology.
Contributors include Elisa Joy White, Raiford Gaines, Daphine Washington, Guy Berger and the aforementioned George Lewis (whose essay is a great thing to read while listening to his trombone playing), along with a critical introduction by Anna Everett.
The book comes with a remarkable DVD that offers highlights from the conference presentations. The DVD alone is a powerful resource that many of us will be citing from in conferences to come.
For information about the book, email the Center at: ctr4blst@cbs.ucsb.edu .