American film and music critic Armond White and British cultural studies scholar Paul Gilroy are two larger-than-life figures—widely celebrated but also controversial—in the fields where they've become essential voices. As Black men, they also occupy a unique space in those sectors. 

Dr. Daniel McNeil, a professor at Queen’s University and the Queen’s National Scholar Chair in Black Studies, explores these two men and their impact in Thinking While Black: Translating the Politics and Popular Culture of a Rebel Generation (Between the Lines Books). 

Though White and Gilroy live an ocean away from one another, McNeil deftly winds the threads of their lives together as he examines their influence, the reactions their writings and research elicit, and their treatment and movement within their rarefied cultural spaces. Drawing on politics, pop culture, and film theory, Thinking While Black charts a history through artistic movements of the late twentieth century, the evolution of Black voices in film and culture, and more. McNeil also reveals how creative artists such as Bob Marley and Toni Morrison inspired White and Gilroy to draw thoughtful and insightful conclusions about what cultural spaces and commentators can tell us about identity, racism, and the character of a country.