"There is an obesity epidemic in this country and poor black women are particularly stigmatized as "diseased" and a burden on the public health care system. This is only the most recent incarnation of the fear of fat black women, which Sabrina Strings shows took root more than two hundred years ago. Strings weaves together an eye-opening historical narrative ranging from the Renaissance to the current moment, analyzing important works of art, newspaper...

Documentary film that reveals the shocking truth about hair, politics, and racial identity in Black communities and beyond. Directed by New York City based clinical psychologist Gillian Scott-Ward, the film was inspired by the work she was doing in her clinical practice and her own drive to go natural. Back to Natural is a powerful call for healing that takes a grassroots approach to exploring the globalized policing of natural Black hair. Filmed...

In these deeply researched essays, a Paris Review contributor blends science, history, and memoir to explore human obsession with gorgeous things, exposing the fraught histories of makeup, silk, jewels, perfume, and other objects, helping readers to ethically partake in the beauty of the world around them.