Introduction to Black Popular Culture

This course examines how Black Americans helped shape and have been shaped by American Popular Culture. We will examine the historical relationship of people of African descent to mainstream culture through a critical examination of "popular" representations of "Blackness." This course will include a discussion of new media and traditional media experienced in the digital age. This course will also consider the impact of U.S. "Black" popular culture on the African diaspora, and African diasporic influences on present-day "Black" popular culture. In this course, students should develop a critical consciousness and literacy regarding issues of popular representations of Black urbanity, Afro-Surrealism, Afrofuturism, and gendered issues of Black identity. To do this, we will draw from abroad range of scholarship, theory, and concepts in media studies, cultural studies, performance theory, visual culture, and history. We will engage in the work of scholars such as: Stuart Hall, Herman Gray, E. Patrick Johnson, Marlon Riggs, Mark Anthony Neal, Moya Bailey, Simone C. Drake, and Ann duCille.