A prize-winning poetry collection that delves into the dark wood of the digital underworld: "Impressive . . . thought-provoking." — Publishers Weekly (starred review)What is the deep web? A locked door. A tool for oppression and for revolution. "An emptying drain, driven by gravity." And in Patrick Johnson's Gatekeeper—selected by Khaled Mattawa as the winner of the 2019 Ballard Spahr Prize for Poetry—it is the place where connection is darkly tran...

Giving voice to a population too rarely acknowledged, Sweet Tea collects more than sixty life stories from black gay men who were born, raised, and continue to live in the South. E. Patrick Johnson challenges stereotypes of the South as “backward” or “repressive” and offers a window into the ways black gay men negotiate their identities, build community, maintain friendship networks, and find sexual and life partners — often in spaces and activities that appear to be antigay. Ultimately, S...

E. Patrick Johnson's Honeypot opens with the fictional trickster character Miss B. barging into the home of Dr. EPJ, informing him that he has been chosen to collect and share the stories of her people. With little explanation, she whisks the reluctant Dr. EPJ away to the women-only world of Hymen, where she serves as his tour guide as he bears witness to the real-life stories of queer Black women throughout the American South. The women he meets come from all walks of life and re...

Reviving Ezra is a fictional novel that challenges American believers, educates Western believers, and admonishes the entire body of Christ about what many members of the body of Christ face throughout the world in relation to persecution, martyrdom, and oppression. It not only highlights the plight of persecuted people, but it is also rich in true worship. The novel takes readers through the cost of revival and what is needed to revive a community, a state, and a nation. In this novel, Ez...

The late Dwight Conquergood’s research has inspired an entire generation of scholars invested in performance as a meaningful paradigm to understand human interaction, especially between structures of power and the disenfranchised. Conquergood’s research laid the groundwork for others to engage issues of ethics in ethnographic research, performance as a meaningful paradigm for ethnography, and case studies that demonstrated the dissolution of theory/practice binaries.Cultural Struggles

Thomas Johnson's latest novel launches a gripping two-book dystopian saga: Escape from Apidae.Apidae is a perfect world. This hive society has been engineered with precision and populated by carefully designed citizens known as hive units. Every aspect of life is regulated: ideal health, flawless physiques, uniform appearances, standardized heights, and controlled intellects. Apidae stands for humanity's vision of ultimate superiority....

Thomas Johnson's latest novel launches a gripping two-book dystopian saga: Escape from Apidae.Apidae is a perfect world. This hive society has been engineered with precision and is populated by carefully designed citizens known as hive units**. Every aspect of life is regulated: ideal health, flawless physiques, uniform appearances, standardized heights, and controlled intellects. Apidae stands for humanity's vision of ...

Staging an important new conversation between performers and critics, Blacktino Queer Performance approaches the interrelations of blackness and Latinidad through a stimulating mix of theory and art. The collection contains nine performance scripts by established and emerging black and Latina/o queer playwrights and performance artists, each accompanied by an interview and critical essay conducted or written by leading scholars of black, Latina/o, and queer expressive practices. A...

Scholars of US and transatlantic slavery have largely ignored or dismissed accusations that Black Americans were cannibalized. Vincent Woodard takes the enslaved person's claims of human consumption seriously, focusing on both the starvation of the slave and the tropes of cannibalism on the part of the slaveholder, and further draws attention to the ways in which Blacks experienced their consumption as a fundamentally homoerotic occurrence.Utilizing many staples of African American...

Interrogating three core assumptions made within the field of media literacy—that media literacy practices empower individuals, support communities, and contribute to engaged citizenship within a democracy—this book presents a new framework for equitable media literacy practices.Using the results of a large-scale research project to interrogate these long-held assumptions and explore the connection between impactful media literacy practices and equity, the authors demonstrate the c...

Olivia was supposed to buy eggs at the store. Instead, she bought a circus! Between food fights and a lack of potty training, her mom is not thrilled. When Mr. Victor refuses to take the animals back, it’s off to the zoo for Olivia's new friends . . . unless she can find a way to prove that she is in control of her circus. Janet Sumner Johnson (Braver Than Brave, A Bad Case of the Almosts, and Help Wanted, Must Love Books) takes a simple idiom and turns it into a hilariou...

This new collection brings together plays and monologues from the National Black Theatre Festival, one of the most historic and culturally significant events—not only in the history of Black theater but in American theater. Held every two years in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, this gathering of Black theater companies and artists from around the country and across the globe features an extraordinary array of performances, workshops, films, spoken-word poetry, and more. Established in 1989...