WGST 305(F) The Hip-Hop Generation: Power, Identity, and Social Change (Same as Africana Studies 305 and Sociology 305)

AFR 305(F) The Hip-Hop Generation: Power, Identity, and Social Change (Same as Sociology 305 and Women's and Gender Studies 305)
This 300-level course investigates the social, cultural, and political dynamics of the hip-hop generation. Hip-hop is used to frame the analysis of U.S. and urban "social problems" since the late 1970s. First, students will be asked to consider the larger structural forces that have given rise to hip-hop including economic dislocation, discrimination, the drug economy, and mass incarceration. Second, the course will use hip-hop as a critical framework for exploring how popular/youth culture (re)produces and (re)defines cultural assumptions about race-ethnicity, gender and sexuality, and social class. Drawing on social interactionist and dramaturgical theory, we will examine how hip-hop facilitates and defines how we understand and "perform" these social identities. Third, students will be challenged to consider how popular identity and culture might facilitate or hinder social change. Combining ideas from theories of social movements, we will explore how hip-hop can be used to resist and challenge inequality, "speak truth to power," and enact social change. Scholarly and popular texts, film, hip-hop music, and original student research projects will be used to gain a comprehensive understanding of these social issues.
Format: seminar/research practicum. Requirements: Students will maintain a critical listening journal throughout the semester; Final research paper and formal presentation of findings.
No prerequisites. Enrollment limit: 24. Preference given to Africana Studies concentrators and Sociology majors.
Hour: GOSA