• Published on

    Dr. Christian To Write Authorized Biography About Sylvia Moy, Motown’s First Female Songwriter, Producer Who Helped Revive Stevie Wonder’s Early Career As Teen

    Image description

    Behind every great man is an even greater woman. The groundbreaking Sylvia Moy was Motown’s first certified female in-house songwriter and producer to do both simultaneously, consistently, and consecutively alongside her male counterparts in the 1960s. 


    ​The time has come for Moy’s story to be told. She will take center stage in the biography written by Dr. Christian. The book is officially titled, It's No Wonder: The Life and Times of Motown's Legendary Songwriter Sylvia Moy, with a release date of February 10, 2026 (Da Capo). 


    Moy was the mastermind behind classic hits such as The Isley Brothers’ “This Old Heart of Mine (Is Weak For You)”, Marvin Gaye and Kim Weston’s “It Takes Two,” and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas’ “My Baby Loves Me,” and “Honey Chile,” among just a few. She was most notably known for writing a string of hits for a teen Stevie Wonder that revived his career and launched him into superstardom. This included “Uptight (Everything’s Alright),”“I Was Made to Love Her,” “My Cherie Amour,” and "Shoo-Be-Doo-Be-Doo-Da-Day." 


    #ItsNoWonder #SylviaMoy #StevieWonder #Motown #ClassicMotown #MotownMuseum  #BMI  #HachetteBooks  #HachetteUS

    Picture
  • Published on

    Standing in A Class All His Own, Spike Lee Continues to Educate By Any Means Necessary

    Picture
    Academy Award-winning filmmaker Spike Lee has been schooling moviegoers since he entered the industry in 1983. The time has come for the tenured NYU professor's work to be more widely considered in education, specifically at the collegiate level, starting with Do the Right Thing.

    This month I shared my thoughts with Visible Magazine about the necessity of casting a wider net in the classroom to raise awareness and introduce pivotal lessons about race and racial injustices. Check out the article here: visiblemagazine.com/spike-lees-do-the-right-thing-should-be-mandatory-in-higher-ed/
    ​
    ​In 2010, I interviewed the late Bill Nunn, a Morehouse College grad like Lee, who portrayed the unforgettable character Radio Raheem in the film. 
    Image description
    “Let me tell you the story of Right Hand, Left Hand. It’s a tale of good and evil. Hate: It was with this hand that Cane iced his brother. Love: These five fingers, they go straight to the soul of man. The right hand: The hand of love. The story of life is this: Static. One hand is always fighting the other hand, and the left hand is kicking much ass. I mean, it looks like the right hand, Love, is finished. But hold on, stop the presses. The right hand is coming back. Yeah, he got the left hand on the ropes, now, that’s right. Yeah, boom. It’s a devastating right and Hate is hurt. He’s down. Ooh! Ooh! Left-Hand, Hate, KOed by Love."    Radio Raheem 
    Picture
  • Published on

    Dr. Christian Selected for 2022-2023 National Public Voices Fellowship Led by OpEd Project

    The Public Voices Fellowship (PVF) at the University of Illinois System is part of a prestigious national initiative to change who writes history. The 2022-2023 cohort for the system-wide PVF were announced on September 15 by Avijit Ghosh, executive vice president and vice president for academic affairs for the University of Illinois System.

    The PVF is a unique opportunity led by The OpEd Project and designed for tenure-system faculty. The program is part of a national initiative to help faculty amplify their expertise in ways that can contribute to public conversations about pressing issues. The internationally acclaimed curriculum and method explore leadership, power, and action in an unfair world. Using time tested methods of transformational learning, fellows will explore how credibility works, how ideas spread, when and why minds change, and how ideas play out over time and space. 

    Now in its fourth year, the program traditionally hosted 20 slots to tenured faculty. For the first time ever, this year two of those slots were reserved for non-tenured faculty at the three universities, which include the University of Chicago (UIC), University of Illinois Springfield (UIS), and University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (U of I/UIUC).  

    The faculty chosen for the 2022-2023 cohort includes the following:

    Chicago
    • Xóchitl Bada, Associate Professor in Latin American and Latino Studies, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    • Cynthia Blair, Associate Professor of Black Studies and History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the Director of the African American Cultural Center
    • Margena Christian, Media Scholar, Journalist, Author and Senior Lecturer, Department of English, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    • Michael Jin, Associate Professor of Global Asian Studies and History,
      Global Asian Studies Program, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    • Julie Maslowsky, Associate Professor of Community Health Sciences, School of Public Health
    • Ivón Padilla-Rodríguez, Bridge to Faculty Postdoctoral Research
      Associate, Department of History, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    • Christine Park, Professor of Anesthesiology and Medical Education,
      College of Medicine
    • Laurie Jo Reynolds, Associate Professor, Department of Art, School of Art and Art History
    • Jessica Shaw, Assistant Professor and Community Psychologist, Department of Psychology, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    Springfield
    • Jennifer Martin, Associate Professor, School of Education
    • Sean McCandless, Assistant Professor, School of Public Management and Policy
    • Amy McEuen, Associate Professor, School of Integrated Sciences, Sustainability, and Public Health
     Urbana-Champaign
    • Catherine Corr, Associate Professor, Department of Special Education, College of Education
    • Marc Doussard, Associate Professor, Department of Urban and Regional Planning, College of Fine and Applied Arts
    • Leonard McKinnis, Assistant Professor of Religion and Black Studies, Department of Religion and Department of African American Studies, College of Liberal Arts & Sciences
    • Rachel McMillian, Assistant Professor, Department of Curriculum and Instruction, College of Education
    • Lissette Piedra, Associate Professor, School of Social Work
    • Imanni Sheppard, Teaching Assistant Professor, Co-Director of Bioethics and Medical Humanities Thread, Medical Education Facilitator, Biomedical and Translational Sciences, Carle Illinois College of Medicine
    • Helga Varden, Professor, Department of Philosophy, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences
    • Lesley Wexler, John D. Colombo Professor of Law, College of Law
     
  • Published on

    Dr. Christian Awarded 2022-2023 Faculty Innovations in Pedagogy and Teaching Fellowship from The HistoryMakers

    Picture
    Margena A. Christian, a senior lecturer in English at the University of Illinois Chicago, is one of seven educators selected to receive a 2022-2023 Faculty Innovations in Pedagogy and Teaching Fellowship from The HistoryMakers, a nonprofit research and educational institution committed to the preservation and accessibility of untold personal stories of both well-known and unsung African Americans.

    The fellowship is designed to foster classroom innovation and teaching and diversify curricula while broadening student learning and research skills. Award recipients receive a $7,500 award and the opportunity to demonstrate how faculty can creatively incorporate The HistoryMakers Digital Archive into a semester course and syllabus.

    Christian’s UIC course, “Say It Loud, I’m Black and I’m Proud! Writing About African Americans in the Media,” will use The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to explore the role of the Black media in political, social and cultural coverage with regards to representation, dissemination, innovation and education. She is the author of Empire: The House That John H. Johnson Built. 

    Students will evaluate misconceptions and misrepresentations about African Americans, engage in scholarly research to uncover strategies utilized in contributing to more inclusivity, and identify the diverse narratives employed within The HistoryMakers Digital Archive to understand why who controls the narrative matters in the media.

    “The fellowship’s first two years proved The HistoryMakers Digital Archive is a unique electronic resource that works well in-person or over video-sharing platforms like Zoom. This year, I am so pleased by the caliber of applications received and look forward to what engaging discussion and research spring from use of the archive,” said Julieanna L. Richardson, founder and president of The HistoryMakers.

    Other recipients include the following: