This course
explores the political and aesthetic foundations of hip hop. We will
trace the musical, corporeal, visual, spoken word, and literary manifestations
of hip hop over its thirty-five year presence in the American cultural
imaginary. We will also investigate specific black cultural practices
that have given rise to its various idioms. Hip hop has invigorated
the academy, inspiring scholarship rooted in black musical and literary
traditions. We will also assess these sharp breaks and flamboyant
versionings of hip hop style that have occurred within the academy.
Because
"hip hop" is an ever-expanding area in formation, we will be concerned
with the process of research circumscription. How are areas of popular
culture to be explored? What research methodologies are useful in
the study of popular culture? What are the discursive boundaries of
something we can call "hip hop?" To pursue these questions, each student
will be assigned to a group responsible for leading one of the weekly
discussion sessions with a presentation. The presentation should be
conceived to interrogate the readings and viewings; to raise questions
and issues around the material and its presentation; and to critique
the relationship of the weekly theme, hip hop, and the popular culture
we share at MIT and in Cambridge, MA. If you decide to include music
in your presentation, you must provide lyrics for the entire class.
Two fairly reliable lyric resources are
www.ohhla.com and www.anysonglyrics.com.
Requirements
for this course will comprise four components: free-write exercise,
performance review, group oral presentation, and final paper, as detailed
on this site.
Required
Texts: HipHop Matters: Politics, Pop Culture, and the Struggle
for the Soul of a Movement by S. Craig Watkins. Boston: Beacon
Press, 2005
That’s
the Joint! : the Hip-Hop Studies Reader edited by Murray Forman
& Mark Anthony Neal. New York: Routledge, 2004
