THE BLACK LEXICON Reference Series
Description
THE BLACK LEXICON SERIES
The Black Lexicon is a landmark, multi-volume reference series designed to define, codify, and advance the theoretical language of Black-centered disciplines across the academy. Curated and led by Series Editor Dr. Ayo Sekai, political scientist, linguist, and methods scholar, this initiative establishes an authoritative body of terminology shaped by African epistemologies, diasporic histories, and liberatory research traditions.
The Black Lexicon is an infrastructure for academic rigor, disciplinary coherence, and intellectual sovereignty.
The Black Lexicon Series Description
The Black Lexicon is a discipline-defining reference series published by Universal Write Publications. The series is dedicated to establishing, preserving, and advancing the core conceptual language and pedagogical fields. Each volume provides authoritative definitions, theoretical grounding, and scholarly context for the terms, frameworks, and methodologies that shape Black intellectual traditions across time and geography. The Black Lexicon provides comprehensive volumes that document key terms, conceptual frameworks, and foundations across emerging and established disciplines, including adjacent core fields. Each volume is a reference and dictionary text, grounded in research, precision, and historical context. The series addresses a longstanding need in higher education to develop a shared, discipline-specific language grounded in Black thought.
The Black Lexicon Series Editor
Dr. Ayo Sekai is a political linguist and methodologist whose work centers on language, power, and global Black knowledge production. She earned her PhD in Political Science from Howard University, specializing in Black Politics and International Relations, with scholarly expertise in linguistic imperialism, epistemic sovereignty, and Africa-centered research frameworks. She earned her master’s degree from the University of South Florida’s Institute of Latin America and the Caribbean, with a focus on Political Corruption, and her bachelor’s degree from the State University of Buffalo in English, and is the author of A2: A Scholarly Poetical Science Discourse. Dr. Sekai has built an internationally respected Black-owned academic press dedicated to publishing rigorous, discipline-advancing scholarship by Black scholars. As Series Editor of The Black Lexicon, she provides intellectual stewardship, ensuring disciplinary precision, conceptual integrity, and scholarly excellence across all volumes.
Established Innovative & Emerging Disciplines for the Academy and Beyond
Every volume includes:
- Peer-reviewed scholarly entries
- Definition disciplines (term | origin | usage | interdisciplinary links)
- A prefatory essay on the discipline’s intellectual lineage
- Deep methodological grounding aligned with Black research traditions
- Cross-disciplinary references to ensure conceptual coherence
- Periodic updates, treating the series as a living, evolving canon
The editorial process is anchored in a commitment to intellectual sovereignty.
The Black Lexicon exists to:
- Reclaim authority over the language in Global Black studies
- Ensure terminological accuracy and cultural grounding
- Provide faculty, researchers, and students with rigorous scholarly tools
- Strengthen the legitimacy and visibility of Black-centered epistemologies
- Equip institutions to accurately teach Black knowledge systems
- Restores intellectual sovereignty to Black scholarship
- Provides pedagogical tools for teaching Africana frameworks
- Creates methodological cohesion across interdisciplinary studies
- Strengthens epistemic justice by centering African worldviews
- Offers reference works that challenge Eurocentric canons and reorient the global academy
The Black Lexicon reorients the academy toward epistemic domains of the future, positioning the series at the forefront of global academic discourse.
