Science is a truth that is true no matter what, no matter when and for all time and science as the kind of gospel truth replaces the gospel, which was religion.

I'm a professional historian. I do my research. I have a PhD. What does my race have to do with it?

We live in a world in which it's harder to talk about the American in the singular, so we're a multi. We have several different people who represent the United States, so in that sense whiteness, the salience, the importance of whiteness is kind of tamping down some.

Being a graduate student is no fun and is hard, but I'm sticking with it. I love making art.

The American sense of the importance, the fundamental importance of the black-white dichotomy, comes out of societies founded in the era of the African slave trade, so societies like ours, that is to say the western hemisphere, the Caribbean and so forth, we share a lot in common.

Making art for me is not fun in the sense of la, la, la, la, but it's something that I find very absorbing and very satisfying.

Grigsby's marvelous exploration-a deep, wide, and beautiful inquiry into Sojourner Truth's use of technology-features more of her photographs than have ever been collected before. Among its many insights, I especially relished the analysis of Truth's illiteracy. Enduring Truths is art history with a wide-ranging concept of history left in. A terrific book, and one we've needed for a long time.