02. Resist the Audio Archive
HOST AND CURATOR
Sara Ortiz
SENIOR PRODUCER
Nicole Kelly
ASSOCIATE PRODUCERS
Vera Blossom and Layla Muhammad
MIXER + ENGINEER
Fil Corbitt and Kevin Krall
CONTRIBUTORS
Josh Kun, Toni Morrison, Fred Moten, and Guest Host Niela Orr
MUSIC BY
Jeremy Klewicki
ILLUSTRATION
Jesse Zhang
INVISIBLE INK
Fifteen years ago this month, on April 6, 2006, Nobel Prize winner Toni Morrison spoke to a crowded lecture hall on the campus of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Morrison delivered the inaugural Black Mountain Institute lecture on refuge and asylum to a large crowd of eager listeners. In this segment, The Believer’s deputy editor and essayist Niela Orr revisits the lecture in an audio piece about home, freedom, and loss.
Music in this segment: “Baldwin [from The Majesty of Jah]” by William Parker; “James Baldwin To The Rescue” by William Parker; Bessie Smith - “St Louis Blues”
THE CONTINUOUS SONG
After one year at Harvard, Vegas-born scholar and poet Fred Moten took a hiatus and returned to Las Vegas, where he worked as a janitor at the Nevada Test Site in the early ‘80s. In this conversation, Moten sits down with cultural historian, critic, and friend Josh Kun to discuss James Baldwin, music, loss, extraordinary listening, and–for Moten–what it was like growing up in Las Vegas.
Music in this segment: Til Paradiso - Beautiful Memories, Audiobinger - Lonely Winter
BONUS MATERIAL
LECTURE BY TONI MORRISON
For the first Black Mountain Institute lecture, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize-wining author Toni Morrison explored asylum, refuge, and moral imagination.
Disclaimer: This recording is imperfect–some might say, unintelligible. We encourage listening to it while reading the transcription.