Conspi(racism): Cultural Production and Black(ened) Epistemologies (working title)

Conspi(racism): Cultural Production and Black(ened) Epistemologies demonstrates black cultural production as praxes through which knowledge is generated, archived, and transmitted via the study of conspiracy theorizing in Black American art and media. While the vast majority of research concerning conspiracy theorizing applies blanket pathologies of delusion and irrationality to these practices, this work instead asserts that conspiracy theorizing among Black people is grounded in the realities of race as a dehumanizing framework which facilitates the justification of real conspiracies to commit harm. These include the exploitation of black bodies, the dispossession of black land and resources, the regulation of black reproduction and intimacy, and the ongoing production of black life as expendable. Through the examination of the music, film, and print media, Conspi(racism) questions the limits of Western epistemological norms and offers a case study in alternative modes of knowledge production.

Truss, A. (in press, expected 2026). Symbiosis and Syncretism: Theorizing Otherwise Ecologies in Black Ecofeminist Art. Lateral.

This article reflects on the works of Kenyan artist Wangechi Mutu, Black American artist Alisha B. Wormsley, and AfroDominicanYork artist Yelaine Rodriguez as ecofeminist theorizations of otherwise ecological relationships. Each of these artists crafts visual languages that entangle pasts, presents, and speculative futures to resist colonial ways of knowing and being in relationship with both the human and the non-human. Through abstraction, they disorient fixed meanings and destabilize representational norms, allowing the viewer to inhabit a dynamic space and offering alternative, more fluid understandings of interdependence between humans, nature, and the spiritual. This disruption invites a reimagining of ecological relationships that transcend colonial frameworks, focused on healing and radical interconnectedness.

Truss, A. (2025). Charles Mills: Race and/as Conspiracy. Media Theory, 9(2).

Political philosopher Charles W. Mills provided us with nuanced, integral conceptions of the foundational role of race and racialization in structuring our political realities. His work was fundamentally concerned with personhood and how hegemonic power structures facilitate the denial of full personhood on the basis of race. Mills’ theorization of race and racial subjugation has implications for a wide variety of fields, including media studies. This paper specifically reflects of how his work might help us understand the social construction of race as a conspiracy, providing media scholars with a necessary perspective that allows us to more thoroughly and accurately understand the media-based information practices and behaviors of Black Americans, among other marginalized groups. Read here!

Banet-Weiser, S. & Truss, A. (2023) #WeAreTogether: University Branding in the Time of COVID and Black Lives Matter. In E. West & M. P. Mcallister (Eds.), The Routledge Companion to Advertising and Promotional Culture (2nd ed). Routledge.

This book chapter considers the broader promotional context of higher education and the contemporary branding of universities. Universities, like other products, are part of a competitive, capitalist exchange circuit and, as such, have adopted general promotional practices, such as branding, to sell their goods on a global market. This essay focuses on social media as part of the broader neoliberal brand environment of universities and examines the current moment of university branding about COVID and Black Lives Matter and Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion through logos, mission statements, and social media–focused campaigns such as #WeAreTogether. Read here.

Chang, Y .K., Literat, I., Price, C., Eisman, J.I., Chapman, A., Gardner, J., & Truss, A. (2020). News literacy education in a polarized political climate: How games can teach youth to spot misinformation. The Harvard Kennedy School Misinformation Review.

We designed, implemented and evaluated a game about fake news to test its potential to enhance news literacy skills in educational settings. The game was largely effective at facilitating complex news literacy skills. When these skills were integrated into the design and fictional narrative of the game, diverse groups of students engaged with the learning goals and transferred this knowledge to real life contexts. The fictional narrative allowed students to learn about misinformation without the distraction of political stances and divisions, and deploying news literacy strategies as a winning strategy within the game allowed students to articulate and practice these skills. However, teacher preparation for game-based learning mattered, and additional support is needed for integrating such games into school curricula. Read here!

Truss, A. & Jackson, S. (under review). Depathologizing Black Conspiracy Theorizing: Race, Distrust, and the Politics of Rationality. Communication & Critical/Cultural Studies.

This article examines the culturally specific meaning-making through which Black Americans engage in conspiracy theorizing alongside a documented history of conspiracies enacted against them. We situate this inquiry within a broader critical–cultural project to empirically and theoretically decouple the study of conspiracy from pathology, illiberalism, and whiteness. Linking communication, Black studies, and related fields, we argue that scholars must account for how the origins, uses, and stakes of conspiracy theorizing among subordinated publics materially differ from those of dominant groups. To advance this shift, we propose treating race itself —and its attendant ideologies— as a conspiratorial framework that structures knowledge and rationality. We illustrate our approach with an analysis of voter suppression conspiracies targeting Black communities, then revisiting the 2018 Georgia gubernatorial contest to model how researchers can approach conspiracy claims arising from non‑dominant publics with greater rigor and nuance. Our reframing expands methodological and theoretical horizons for studying conspiracy.

Davis, C. & Truss, A. (under review) Radically Imagining and Birthing New Futures: Archiving Black-Led Birth Centers Across the U.S. Communication & Race.

Top Paper Award, NCA 2023 - African American Communication and Culture Division

Over the last decade, an extensive visual archive of Black death demonstrating the ongoing violence of anti-Black racism has galvanized racial justice movements across the globe. This archive has been examined in-depth by communication scholars and other researchers (Fischer and Mohrman 2016; Threadcraft 2017; Richardson 2020). Yet, the Black feminist and womanist networks that imagine and create liberated visions of Black life have received less scholarly attention. Of particular interest to us is the growing network of Black-led birth centers and pregnancy care collectives that employ social media to construct an alternative visual archive of care, community, and interdependent connection for Black families, birth givers, and birth workers.

Truss, A. (2021). Book Review: The digital lives of black women in Britain by Francesca Sobande. Critical Studies in Media Communication 38(3).

“Frequently, Black women’s digital lives are studied through the lens of resistance; their use of online platforms to tell their truths, to organize, to mobilize, to promote various calls to action, and so on. Their erasure and the appropriation of their work are common areas of interest, centering the “structural oppression and omission” Black women fight online and relating it to the struggles they face in the real world (Sobande, 2020, p. 12). While these immensely important aspects of Black women’s experiences online are drawn out in The Digital Lives of Black Women in Britain (2020), Francesca Sobande adds new levels of depth to the ways in which we understand Black women’s online experiences.” Read more here.

#SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence at the Parkway Central Free Library of Philadelphia (2023)

Center for Media at Risk Review

While the audience went to Kimberlé Crenshaw’s October 14th Author Event at the Parkway Central Free Library expecting a book talk, what we experienced was more of a vigil: an honoring of the lives of the more than 200 Black women, girls and femmes murdered by the police whom Crenshaw profiled in her latest book, #SayHerName: Black Women’s Stories of Police Violence and Public Silence. Emceed by Penn sociology and law professor Dorothy Roberts, the George A. Weiss University Professor, the event featured song, brief readings from the book, conversation with mothers of women murdered by the police and, most prominently, the ritual of Saying Her Name(s). The event was unexpectedly therapeutic, reminding myself and many others in the audience why we do the types of scholarly, activist and artistic work we do. Read more here.

How Murals by Black Artists Depict the Black Lives Matter Protests of 2020 (2021)

Center for Media at Risk Research

“The 2020 protests against police brutality that ensued following the murder of George Floyd galvanized the Philadelphia mural arts scene. A city with a rich tradition of activism and public art since the founding of Mural Arts Philadelphia in 1984, Philadelphia has become one of the most vibrant centers for public art works in the world, commissioning over 4,000 works of community-based public artworks since its founding. Though Mural Arts started as an anti-graffiti effort (appropriately called the Anti-Graffiti Network until 2016), it has since transformed into a key channel for local artists to engage in the (sometimes radical) discourse around issues in Philadelphia and beyond. As Philadelphia’s reputation for being a mural arts destination has grown, city-sponsored offices and other small arts organizations have also begun sponsoring projects.” Read more here.

Rajan, S., Truss, A., Riina-Ferrie, J., & Vasudevan, L. (Producers and Editors). (2020-2021). (Re)Search for Solutions, Teachers College MASCLab.

(Re)Search for Solutions (2020-2021) is a limited series podcast focusing specifically on unexpected and creative ways that researchers are looking at solutions to the persistence of gun violence. I co-produced this series alongside the Media and Social Change Lab (MASCLab) at Teachers College, Columbia University. To develop these stories, we collaborated with the experts (professors, community members, doctors, activists, teachers, and more) to understand the stories surrounding their work.

Listen to (Re)search for Solutions on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, or Google Podcasts.