Transition

Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. In issue 112, the editors of Transition look at violence, particularly as it relates to the history of slavery, which raises the question of representation. Textbooks and television both grapple with the same fundamental questions: to whom do the stories of slaves belong? How should these stories be told? In this issue, Daniel Itzkovitz talks with Tony Kushner about the controversy that surrounded the making of Lincoln, a serious and sober film about the passage of the 13th Amendment. Django Unchained covers the same time period but uses a wildly different lens. The film is terrifying and topsy-turvy, and has ignited controversy that became a white-hot conflagration. Henry Louis Gates, Jr. speaks with Quentin Tarantino about the making of his film, and a host of scholars and critics, including Walter Johnson, Glenda Carpio, and Terri Francis, set the issue ablaze with provocative and searing commentary that speaks to the controversial film and its potent afterlife.

December 2014 marked a year since the passing of Nelson Mandela-a man who was as much myth as flesh and blood. Transition pays tribute to Mandela's worldly attainments and to his otherworldly sainthood. Featuring remembrances from Wole Soyinka, Xolela Mangcu, Pierre de Vos, and Adam Habib, this issue assembles Mandela's staunchest allies-for whom he approached saintliness-as well as his most entrenched critics. Other contributors consider the iconicity of Mandela-including his representations in films, the importance of boxing to his political career, his time studying with the revolutionary army in Algeria, his stance on children's rights, and even his ill-fated trip to Miami. Whoever you think Mandela was-or wasn't-this issue is the new required reading.

Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. In issue 117, Transition presents new short fiction from writers with Uganda, Nigeria, Senegal, Ghana, Liberia-and the diaspora-in their veins. Also in this issue are: selections from Transition's online forum, "I Can't Breathe," a venue for discussing the recent murders by police of unarmed black Americans, selections of poetry, and an interview with the architect and curator of the opening exhibit at Harvard University's new Cooper Gallery of African and African American Art.

Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. This issue of Transition focuses on "Mad." The editors look at connections between blackness and psychology, examining Richard Wright's attempts to bring clinical psychotherapy to Harlem and revealing the links between schizophrenia and fears of black "psychos." As Ferguson, Missouri becomes the latest community to rage against the state-sanctioned murder of unarmed black men, we ask what James Baldwin and Stokely Carmichael might have to tell us about why African Americans continue to be pushed to the margins of American society. The editors also examine the marginalized community of black Palestinians, doubly imperiled by Israeli slaughter and internal racism. And finally, on a lighter note, discover music and art that we're "mad" about-from Otis Redding and Vijay Iyer to Kara Walker and Christopher Cozier.

Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. In issue 113, Transition updates Countee Cullen's iconic question by asking, "What is Africa to me now?" A soul-searchingly private query, its ramifications nevertheless play out in profoundly public ways, around issues of immigration, racial and ethnic tension, and the search for belonging. Guest edited by Benedicte Ledent and Daria Tunca, in this cluster Madhu Krishnan takes Achebe's Things Fall Apart as a starting point for defining contemporary African literature, while Louis Chude-Sokei explores through their novels the experiences of Africans living in America. Julie Kleinman reveals the perspective of Malian immigrants in France, and photographer Johny Pitts searches Europe with his camera for what he calls "Afropeans." Meanwhile, celebrated author and editor Hilton Als has his own questions about diaspora, which he explores in recollections of a childhood summer in Barbados. Caribbean Canadian novelist David Chariandy also treats Transition readers to a sneak preview of his forthcoming novel, Brother. The issue concludes with a suite of essays that examine the social impacts of collective fear, and ask-given obvious parallels between the Rodney King beating and the murder of Trayvon Martin-why does this keep happening to young black men?

Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. This issue of Transition-"Gay Nigeria"-pays tribute to those who "agitate the establishment." Gay Nigeria grapples with anti-gay sentiment in Africa through the case-in-point of Nigeria's recent Same-Sex Marriage Prohibition Act, and the global backlash against it. Ayo Sogunro, Rudolf Pell Gaudio, and Davis Mac-Iyalla introduce readers to the complexities of being queer in Nigeria. The editors also remember Amiri Baraka (1934-2014), championed by Molefi Kete Asante as "a righteous defender of human freedom." Komozi Woodard, Ishmael Reed, and Baraka's daughter Kellie Jones add their recollections of the controversial poet-activist. The issue is further graced by tales quintessentially diasporic: a Ghanaian slave-fort turned five-star resort by a British ex-pat; a West African merchant-missionary returning former slaves to his Gold Coast homeland; and tips on how to freak out your American roommate. With incarceration rates of black Americans continuing to soar, Micol Seigel wants to know who makes bank in the lucrative world of bail. Also, is American cinema ready for a black woman protagonist? And finally, enjoy an interview with director Steve McQueen.

Published three times per year by Indiana University Press for the Hutchins Center at Harvard University, Transition is a unique forum for the freshest, most compelling ideas from and about the black world. Since its founding in Uganda in 1961, the magazine has kept apace of the rapid transformation of the African Diaspora and has remained a leading forum of intellectual debate. In issue 111, Transition focuses on "New Narratives of Haiti." Guest editors Laurent Dubois and Kaiama L. Glover have invited contributors to think about the world in ways that place Haiti at its center. Thought pieces by Madison Smartt Bell, Jonathan Katz, Gina Athena Ulysse and others, as well as translations of Franketienne, Lyonel Trouillot, and Michel-Rolph Trouillot, dispel trenchant cliches that have long plagued representations of Haiti in literature and scholarship. This issue also includes Jamaica Kincaid's poignant memories of a brother lost to AIDS, and a scholar's chance discovery of cultural (and genealogical?) links between Cuba and Sierra Leone. Exceptional poetry, fiction, and review essays also take us beyond Haiti to San Francisco, Rio de Janeiro, Nairobi, and Renaissance Europe.