College of Liberal Arts
Please direct all questions about the flag proposal process to the Center for the Skills & Experience Flags.
AFR 317F Performing Blackness
Department of African & African Diaspora Studies
To satisfy the Cultural Diversity flag, at least one-third of course grade must be based on content dealing with underrepresented cultural groups in the US. Please describe which underrepresented cultural groups will be studied in this course, and how one-third of the course grade is based on study of the group(s).
Black Americans will be studied in this course, as students discuss how performances of Black life, Black identity, and Black culture are created, consumed, and sometimes contradicted by artists and non-artists alike.
For the purposes of the Cultural Diversity Flag, the committee understands a cultural group to be “underrepresented” if the experience of its members in the US has been or continues to be one of persistent marginalization. What are some typical readings, assignments, or activities in the course that are related to the context of persistent marginalization of these underrepresented cultural groups?
Colman Domingo, A Boy and His Soul (2013), Angela Nissel, Mixed: My Life in Black and White (2006), Lynn Nottage, By the Way Meet Vera Stark (2013), Stew, Passing Strange (2008), Baratunde Thurston, How to be Black (2012), Rebecca Walker, Black Cool: One Thousand Streams of Blackness (2012), George C. Wolfe, The Colored Museum (1988).
The Cultural Diversity flag indicates that a course will challenge students to explore the beliefs and practices of an underrepresented group in relation to their own cultural experiences so that they engage in an active process of self-reflection. Please describe some assignments or activities that give students an opportunity for this kind of reflection.
This course will explore themes such as the black aesthetic, racial passing, black cool, racial authenticity, cultural appropriation, and performances of black femininity/masculinity. Some of the questions we will address include: What is blackness? How do subjects engage in the performance of blackness? How does performing blackness support reify or undermine black identity, black life and/or black culture? In what ways does sexuality shape and/or inform performances of blackness? Our discussions will also examine how performances of black life, black identity and black culture are created, consumed and sometimes contradicted by artists and non-artists alike.