African American Culture & the Arts

Catalog description

This course provides an introductory historical survey of African American culture and the arts with an emphasis on questions of identity and the social politics of culture. Moving from the “birth” of African American culture on through the rise of black cultural forms, artistic movements and their key figures, attention will be paid to the ways African Americans have historically used realms of culture to negotiate historical conditions in the making of black selves, community and fields of social vision. Whether the Blues, the Harlem Renaissance, or Hip Hop, the central question to be explored is the extent to which “culture” has and continues to serve as a “political” medium in forging of black experience and agency in the U.S. and into the diaspora.