Course module - Hip Hop and Hollywood
Code : AMER30051 Credit rating: 20 Semester : 1
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Aims |
Objectives |
Assessment |
Information
|
Course Content |
Course Materials |
Tutors |
Timetable |
Teaching Methods |
Keywords
Aims
- To explore key conceptual debates in the study of black film and hip-hop culture;
- To consider the industrial and historical contexts of hip-hop cultural production;
- To develop skills of critical thinking and close analysis through a detailed engagement with sources such as film texts, music videos, lyrics, and press reception;
- To build on student awareness of contemporary popular culture addressed in Years 1 and 2, focusing specifically on the interface between film and popular music;
- To encourage students to produce clear and effective written arguments of a standard appropriate to final year degree work.
Objectives (Learning Outcomes)
By the end of this course unit, students should be able to:
- Demonstrate an in-depth understanding of conceptual and historical approaches to the study of hip-hop culture;
- Weigh up competing interpretations and arguments; and critically analyse a range of different source materials; develop interdisciplinary arguments about hip-hop culture;
- Research and construct a convincing argument using appropriate methods of scholarly presentation;
- Critically analyse different kinds of texts; carry out independent research; summarise complex arguments; work in groups; communicate ideas in written and oral presentation.
Assessment
One 2,500-word essay (40%); one 500-word essay plan (10%); one 2-hour unseen written exam (50%)
The use of dictionaries in the examination is prohibited. This rule applies to all categories of students, including all Visiting Students.
Information
THIS COURSE IS NOT AVAILABLE AS FREE-CHOICE.
Course Content
This interdisciplinary course unit examines hip-hop culture from its subcultural origins in the late 1970s through to its mainstreaming in the 1990s and 2000s. Because hip-hop often speaks for marginalized and disadvantaged social groups -- primarily, black urban youth -- its musical and filmic portrayals raise key questions to do with American culture and society. These portrayals dramatize issues of race, gender, generation, class, community, and social inequality, all of which will be explored in this course.
Course Materials
Tutor(s)
Quinn, Dr Eithne
Timetable
PROVISIONAL TIMETABLE FOR 2013-2014
Seminars:
Group 1: Friday 10-1
Group 2: Friday 2-5
Teaching Methods
One 3-hour workshop per week (includes seminar, presentation, mini-lecture, and/or tutorials).
Preliminary reading
Preliminary Reading:
Murray Forman & Mark Anthony Neal, eds, That's the joint!: the hip-hop studies reader (Routledge, 2004)
Robin Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America (Beacon Press, 1997)
Paula Massood, ed., The Spike Lee Reader (Temple UP, 2007)
Gwendolyn Pough, Check It While I Wreck It: Black Womanhood, Hip-hop Culture and the Public Sphere (Northeastern University Press, 2004)
Eithne Quinn, Nuthin’ but a G Thang: The Culture and Commerce of Gangsta Rap (Columbia UP, 2005)
S. Craig Watkins, Representing: Hip-Hop Culture and the Production of Black Cinema (University of Chicago Press, 1998)
Lester Spence, Stare in the darkness: the limits of hip-hop and Black politics (University of Minnesota Press, 2011)