Professor Banks discusses her book, Black Culture Inc.: How Ethnic Community Support Pays for Corporate America. By examining how corporate support and giving to Black museums, cultural events, and music festivals, Prof. Banks details the complicated and often fraught relationship created by these gifts. Afropunk, Kool Cigarettes, and Dennys are all discussed for their relationship to Black culture and consumers.
Patricia A. Banks (Harvard University P.h.D. & A.M./Spelman College B.A.) is Co-Editor-in-Chief of Poetics and Chair and Professor in the Department of Sociology and Anthropology at Mount Holyoke College. In 2018-2019 Banks was in residence at Stanford University as a CASBS Fellow. Banks has also been at Harvard University as a Sheila Biddle Ford Foundation Fellow and Non-Resident Fellow at the Hutchins Center for African & African American Research and received fellowships or grants from institutions such as the UNCF/Mellon Foundation, the Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation, and the American Association of University Women. At Mount Holyoke College Banks is a faculty member in the Program in Africana Studies and the Program in Entrepreneurship, Organizations, and Society.