Today’s conversation is with Irvin Hunt, who teaches in the Departments of English and African American Studies at University of Illinois. He is the author of Dreaming the Present: Time, Aesthetics, and the Black Cooperative Movement, which won Honorable Mention in the William Scarborough Sanders Prize competition in 2023, and he is at work on two books, a study of contemporary Black poetry titled A New Language for Grief and another titled I Can’t Make You Speak: Stories. He is also co-writer of the script for Khalil Joseph’s film BLKNWS: Terms & Conditions. In this conversation, we discuss the critical Black literary tradition, horizons of expressive culture, and the politics of thinking and doing Black Studies in the contemporary moment.