Left of Black, the Webby Award-nominated video series that has spent over a decade spotlighting Black Studies scholars and artists, has announced Christopher Ouma as its new host, according to Left of Black. Ouma, a Kenyan-born scholar and Associate Professor of English at Duke University, steps into a role long held by founding host Mark Anthony Neal, the James B. Duke Distinguished Professor of African and African American Studies, who created and hosted the series since its launch in 2010 and recently transitioned from his post as Chair of Duke’s Department of African & African American Studies.

Ouma brings a distinctly Pan-African, continent-spanning perspective to the role. Raised in Kenya, he left the country after completing his undergraduate degree to pursue graduate studies in South Africa, earning a doctorate from the Department of African Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. Before joining Duke, he held a professorship at the University of Cape Town, where his research centered on African and African diasporic literary and cultural production, African popular culture, and Black print cultures, particularly the small magazines and literary journals that shaped Pan-African thought across the twentieth century. His current book project traces how literary ideas moved across the continent between 1955 and 1975, the period spanning much of Africa’s independence era, and his scholarship has taken him through fellowships at Harvard’s W.E.B. Du Bois Institute, the Open University in London, and the University of Johannesburg.

For Left of Black, the choice signals a widening of scope for a series that has built its reputation interviewing Black Studies scholars and artists largely rooted in American and African American intellectual traditions. Neal’s tenure turned the show into what Northwestern’s Dean E. Patrick Johnson once called a launching pad for a generation of “Blackademics,” and its production home, Duke’s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute, has continued backing the series through recent seasons, including a pair of 2025 Telly Award wins for video excellence. Handing the mic to a scholar whose work is explicitly organized around Pan-African and diasporic connection suggests the series may be angling to deepen its engagement with African literary and intellectual history alongside its long-standing African American focus.

Full details on Ouma’s first season as host, including guest lineups and premiere dates, are expected from Left of Black in the coming weeks.