The Making of the Black Race and Racism in US Popular Culture

Interrogation of the historical, political, social, and ideological processes and practices that have shaped racialized identities. This course will focus on [re]presentations of racial identities on contemporary media through (1) music,(2) film, (3) television but will also analyze gendered and sexualized identities, while being attentive to the ways in which US society has been affected by the varied portrayals present in today?s media-saturated era. This course will also consider the attempt by cultural producers of marginalized groups to destabilize stereotypes and broaden the range of those depictions to reorient these concepts within the American imagination. The goal of this course is to provide students with an introductory understanding of how racialized media depictions play a role in the formation of American culture, as well as the problematic ways in which they inform, mediate, and legitimize social relations within and across American demographics