Eadweard Muybridge, Horses. Gallop; thoroughbred bay mare (Annie G) with male rider, from “Animal locomotion. An electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements”, 1872-1875.
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Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us

Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us

Legacy Russell

Legacy Russell

In Black Meme, Legacy Russell, award winning author of the groundbreaking Glitch Feminism, explores the “meme” as mapped to Black visual culture from 1900 to the present, mining both archival and contemporary media. Russell argues that without the contributions of Black people, digital culture would not exist in its current form. Through imagery, memory, and technology, Black Meme shows us how images of Blackness have always been central to our understanding of the modern world.

Black Meme was published by Verso Books on May 7, 2024. Order the book here. 

Discipline:

Digital Media, Literary Arts, Literary Nonfiction

Award Year:

2021

Eadweard Muybridge, Horses. Gallop; thoroughbred bay mare (Annie G) with male rider, from “Animal locomotion. An electro-photographic investigation of consecutive phases of animal movements”, 1872-1875.
Elizabeth Catlett, There is a Woman in Every Color, 1975. Color linoleum cut, screenprint, and woodcut on Arches paper, 22 1/4 in. x 29 15/16 in. (56.52 cm x76.04 cm). Bowdoin College Museum of Art, Brunswick, Maine, Museum Purchase, Lloyd O. and Marjorie Strong Coulter Fund.
Black Meme: A History of the Images that Make Us
A black webpage.

About Legacy Russell

Brooklyn, NY

Black queer femme with hair tied back at the nape of her neck wearing a yellow and white floral dress with black trim looks sideways at the camera with chin tilted up. Legacy Russell is a writer and curator whose ongoing academic work and research focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Her first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020, Verso Books), is a cyberfeminist call to action that positions error as an opportunity for revolution, exploring the relationship between gender, technology, and identity. She is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, and a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow.

Legacy Russell is a writer and curator whose ongoing academic work and research focuses on gender, performance, digital selfdom, internet idolatry, and new media ritual. Her first book, Glitch Feminism: A Manifesto (2020, Verso Books), is a cyberfeminist call to action that positions error as an opportunity for revolution, exploring the relationship between gender, technology, and identity. She is the Associate Curator of Exhibitions at The Studio Museum in Harlem, the recipient of the Thoma Foundation 2019 Arts Writing Award in Digital Art, and a 2020 Rauschenberg Residency Fellow.

Black queer femme with hair tied back at the nape of her neck wearing a yellow and white floral dress with black trim looks sideways at the camera with chin tilted up.