This is a presentation I gave with my colleague Robert Hanserd in the peak of the Zoom mediated pandemic. Robert’s presentation is based on his own research into the history of Ghana and the transatlantic slave trade – and was in part a critical response to the 1619 project’s contention that the first slaves arrived in the U.S. on that date. My presentation takes us all the way to the almost-present day, looking at the concept of Cultural Appropriation and the change in its meaning and significance in the era of social media. I ultimately use Moby’s album Play as both an index of these changes and a case study in how difficult it is to nail down what is actually “Authentic.”

“The Trick Mirror of Authenticity: Identity, Myth, and the Politics of Cultural Appropriation.”
Humanities, History, and Social Sciences Colloquium, Columbia College Chicago, October 12,
2020.