Hip Hop and Beyond

Course Description

According to sociologist Michael Barnes: “Nothing else, currently, allows you to talk about race, class, gender, sexuality, nationality, politics and the economy than hip-hop music and culture.” In keeping with this view, this course will address hip hop as a complex cultural movement that reflects and engages these categories in the American context and beyond. Since it’s inception, hip hop has transformed from a cultural and political outlet for underprivileged black youth to a commercial explosion and a global political force. This course will trace this shift, and probe its far-reaching implications. While we will certainly consider the aesthetics of hip hop music, our primary concern will be to examine hip hop as a cultural movement through which the politics of identity are negotiated. We will pay special attention to the gender politics of hip hop, focusing heavily on the representation of black masculinity and the work of hip hop feminists, such as Joan Morgan. Our course of study will not be limited by the narrow confines of specific disciplinary approaches. Instead, in keeping with the hip hop aesthetic, we will attempt an intellectual freestyle that will include: a careful exploration of the historical influences that have shaped hip-hop including slavery, the civil rights movement, and the Black Arts movement of the 1960’s; a dynamic consideration of a wide range of cultural practices and materials (double-dutch, contemporary art…etc.) that have either influenced hip-hop or been influenced by it; a thoughtful analysis of the ways in which hip hop has reflected and engaged the intersections between gender and race; an analysis of the global influence of hip-hop and the commercial practices through which hip hop is marketed and distributed in capitalist economies throughout the world.