Forever for the Culture
Notes from the New Black Digital Arts Renaissance
$61.86
- Hardcover
240 pages
- Release Date
3 March 2026
Summary
THE CURATORS OF CULTURE- Celebrate Black digital art in this essay collection revealing how Black artists have shaped everything from TikTok dances to viral memes
Steven Underwood digs into the current Black digital arts movement that has shaped popular culture for the last decade. He connects this current space to historical influences, speaking to a “legacy of audacity and daring that presented us with the opportunity to redirect the conversations on Blackness back on its center. Ba…
Book Details
| ISBN-13: | 9780807013380 |
|---|---|
| ISBN-10: | 0807013382 |
| Author: | Steven Underwood |
| Publisher: | Beacon Press |
| Imprint: | Beacon Press |
| Format: | Hardcover |
| Number of Pages: | 240 |
| Release Date: | 3 March 2026 |
| Weight: | 567g |
| Dimensions: | 216mm x 140mm |
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What They're Saying
Critics Review
“Let us be clear—Black cultural power is a prodigious force that some seek to quash and many seek to replicate. Steven Underwood’s critical, razor-sharp dive into the realm of the new Black digital arts movement proves that assertion to be true. This absorbing work is a timely nod and a thank-you to the ingenious Black creative and cultural workers who are doing their best work in this age of new and social media.”
—Darnell L. Moore, author of No Ashes in the Fire: Coming of Age Black & Free in America
“A commentary on what we owe to those who create it, Forever for the Culture is a peek into the ways Black culture has influenced social media. Underwood’s debut serves as a reminder of what we miss when we think it’s ‘just the internet.’”
—Taylor Lorenz, author of Extremely Online
“Forever for the Culture is a genre-defying series of wows: harrowing memoir, instructional manual, Black gay educational text, prose poetry, homages to literary icons including Toni Morrison. Steven Underwood is fearless in his ambition and his writing: ‘I realized that’s my goal as a Black artist, because Blackness is an art form. It is about how we live our lives as much as it is about why.’ The vulnerability of every sentence here is the result of the kind of healing work I wish for every man I meet.”
—Jericho Brown, author of Pulitzer Prize–winning The Tradition
About The Author
Steven Underwood
Hailing from Columbus, Ohio, Steven Underwood is an award-winning writer with a penchant for unveiling magic in the hypercritical. Honest to his experiences, Underwood has published essays on Blackness and identity. Steven was a finalist for Le Maison Baldwin’s Writers-in-Residence Program. He has no dogs or cats, but two nieces and a nephew who swear they are smarter than him. His non-fiction work has been published in numerous outlets, including Oprah, NPR, Essence, MTV News, Blavity, NewNowNext, BET, GQ, Out Magazine, AfroPunk, Complex, Refinery29, Them, and many, many more. He currently resides in Los Angeles.
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