Africana Studies Commons^™

Meditation – Yeezy’S (Impossible) Love In Fugitivity’S Strings: A Meditation On “Runaway”, James Manigault-Bryant, Lerhonda Manigault-Bryant

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Meditation – We Killed Kanye: A Manifesto To The Old Kanye Fans, Tari Wariebi

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Meditation - Losing Kanye, Cynthia Estremera

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Meditation - Kanye West’S “Jesus Walks,” Black Suffering, And The Problem Of Evil, Angela M. Nelson

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

For Colored Girls And Boys Who Have Considered Suicide/ When Prayer And Good Music Weren’T Enough, Joshua K. Wright

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

April Adams, a 22-year-old Christian graduate student at Howard University, struggled with mental illness for years. Like so many blacks, April expected her faith to serve an elixir for her problems, including depression. However, her prayers were not sufficient. When she was unable to find solace in the church, she sought out an alternative source: the music of Kanye West. She shared her story in a 2016 article, “How An Ultralight Beam Helped My Dark Depression,” which she published in Abernathy magazine. April’s story speaks to the disconnect that many millennials have with the church. Nowhere in her article did …

Meditation - “Ultralight Beam”: The Gospel According To Kanye West, Jeffrey Mccune

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Meditation From Rev. Nathaniel Yates, Metropolitan Youth Pastor, Nathaniel Yates

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

“How Great:” Reflections On Kanye’S Best Prodigy, Chance The Rapper, Joshua K. Wright

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Closing Thoughts, Vanatta S. Ford, Adria Y. Goldman

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Contributors

Journal of Hip Hop Studies

No abstract provided.

Queering Black Greek-Lettered Fraternities, Masculinity And Manhood : A Queer Of Color Critique Of Institutionality In Higher Education., Antron Demel Mahoney

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Drawing heavily on Roderick Ferguson’s (2012) theory of institutionality, this dissertation constructs a counter-historical genealogy of racialized gender in higher education and U.S. society through the formation of black Greek-lettered fraternities. Ferguson argues that with the insurgence of minority resistance globally and domestically during the mid-twentieth century, hegemonic power took a new form. Instead of rejecting minority difference, power’s new network attempted to work through and with minority difference in an effort to absorb and restrict these radical formations within state, capital and academy frameworks—producing narrow or one-dimensional minority subjectivities. Established at the turn of the twentieth century, black Greek-lettered …

The Shape Of You: Music's Impact On Identity, Codi Yhap

Music Summer Fellows

Investigating the multiple functions of music, scholars from various fields have expressed that music can regulate moods and emotions while providing listeners a way to navigate their identity. Focusing primarily on the genre of rap, this research has placed the field of Music and Emotion in conversation with Hip-Hop studies. The field of Music and Emotion has thoroughly measured/examined listener thought processes, bodily response, and cultural influences when engaging with music. Despite the rise in scholarship addressing popular music and emotion, the field rarely includes popular music in its discussions unless, perhaps, the genre is jazz. Recognizing that there are …

Dmt And “The Man Box:” Provoking Change And Encouraging Authentic Living, An Arts-Based Project, Steven Reynolds

Expressive Therapies Capstone Theses

This thesis explores the mind-body experience through an arts-based research approach to examine, and redefine the emotional capacity and usefulness of males through societal determinants that limits and hinders men from living their authentic selves. Through the lens of a metaphoric “Man Box” 112 men participated in a workshop recreating their personal narratives of socialization through, style of dress, coping mechanisms, belief systems and who they should be as men through society's standards. In the “Man Box,” male bonding, and emotional feelings are discouraged, while the objectification of women, material property and physical/emotional strength are encouraged. This research investigates the …

Black Body Memory: A Philosophy Of The Talk, Autumn Redcross

Electronic Theses and Dissertations

This project offers the term Black body memory to point toward the threatened existential disposition of Black people in society today. Moreover, Black body memory points to the narrative paradigm of a shared experience. While popular conceptions theorize race as a social construction, the lived reality of Black people is frequently imbued by racialization and racism. Black body memory emerges from the intersection of the Black body articulated by Franz Fanon, Charles Johnson, and George Yancy, among others, and body memory, as described by Edward Casey and Thomas Fuchs. Black body memory is a culturally-laden and sedimented lived reality. The …

Racial Becoming: How Agentic (Self-Initiated) Encounter Events Inform Racial Identity Refinement, Devin A. Heyward

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

Racial identity literature has typically focused on identity formation through a series of stages. It also has centered how the experience of negative encounter events informs racial identity formation. With the advent of new genealogical and genomic technology, it is imperative to expand the focus of identity literatures to include encounter events, which participants elect to experience (i.e. self-initiated or agentic encounter events). By using this frame, identity processes become fluid and informed by individual life experiences. In the context of this study, direct to consumer genetic ancestry tests (DTC-GAT) are operationalized as a self-initiated encounter event. Participants were …

Clothing The Black Body In Slavery: What They Wore And How It Was Made, Wanett I. Clyde

Dissertations, Theses, and Capstone Projects

After suffering the traumas of capture, enslavement and the ship's journey from their homeland, newly arrived Black people, along with struggling to understand and cope with their reduced circumstances, were often pulled in multiple directions with regard to their appearance. Stripped of garments that represented their native culture and forbidden to practice their personal grooming habits, slaves were now reliant on their owners for care. Once a slave was purchased, it was in the best interest of the master and mistress to protect their investment by providing them with the essentials. Chief among those necessities were clothing.

This thesis will …

Muddling The Middle: Cynical Representations Of Ethnic Relations In V.S. And Shiva Naipaul, Kevin Frank

Publications and Research

In this essay from the collection, Seepersad and Sons: Naipaulian Synergies, Kevin Frank argues that coming from a creolized society, unlike their father, Seepersad, V.S. and Shiva Naipaul's representations of "race" and ethnicity in their works is cynical, favoring one side in the Indo- and Afro-Caribbean racial antagonism, mainly because of their anxiety about "Black Power."

In A Child's Place: Centering Black Girlhood In Black Feminisms Through The Bildungsroman, Taylor L. Bailey

Senior Honors Papers / Undergraduate Theses

This thesis examines the effects of misogynoir— a specific form of oppression Black women experience due to the intersection of being deemed inferior in both race and gender— on the development of Black girlhood. In Black feminist theory and criticism, though, the language used often subordinates Black girls and does not ascribe adequate import to their experiences. Using the Black girl bildungsroman, specifically The Bluest Eye by Toni Morrison and Another Brooklyn by Jacqueline Woodson, as a way to survey the effects of misogynoir and the significance of homosocial, intraracial bonding, I argue that Black feminisms should center Black girlhood …

Grime And Spirit: On A Hype!, Monique Charles

Sociology Faculty Articles and Research

Grime is a genre of Black British music originating from London at the turn of the twenty-first century. In this article, I explore responses to moments of Grime music making and engagement in live performance settings. I make connections between Grime, Black music streams (Lena), Black Atlantic (Gilroy) practices, the Black Public Sphere (Baker) AND how engagements at these intersections are connected to spiritual practice in the context of live performance. The power in Grime live performance settings; where the spiritual is found, connects to the sonic characteristics deployed, embodied and emotive responses and cultural practice. Spirituality, through cultural practice, …

The Multiracial Bronx: A Unique Cultural Incubator In Post War America, Mark Naison

Occasional Essays

No abstract provided.

Post Colonial Studies, Nashieli Marcano, Kyle Brooks

Research Guides & Subject Bibliographies

No abstract provided.

Living Objects Essays: Prologue, John Bell

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Living Objects: African American Puppetry co-curator John Bell describes the team responsible for the Living Objects exhibition, festival, symposium, and online catalogue.

Embracing Complexity In Performing The Other, Valeska Maria Populoh

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

"Embracing Complexity in Performing the Other" is a personal essay by a white, Baltimore-based cultural organizer, puppeteer and educator, reflecting on three scenarios that have catalyzed her thinking about white people performing Black puppets. The author shares her own experience of navigating the complex, and at times highly combustible, issues about representation, appropriation and racial identity in the realm of puppetry, and concludes with a few questions to stimulate further dialogue in the puppetry community about these issues.

Race And Representation: Creating A Puppet Production For The Smithsonian Institution, Brad Brewer

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

The Brewery Puppet Troupe was commissioned by the Smithsonian Museum’s Lemelson Center to undertake new creative challenge: a show featuring African American scientist Lewis Latimer, the nineteenth-century inventor instrumental in creating the electric light bulb. Brad Brewer was committed to showing how Latimer’s life was affected by America’s struggle with slavery and racial inequality, issues he considered equally important to Latimer's scientific achievements. Staff historians read and commented on all the drafts of the script, but the production still included comedic elements typical of a Brewery Troupe production. The project allowed the author to explore some of the hard realities …

An Email Interview With Alva Rogers, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Actor, writer, and puppeteer Alva Rogers recounts her long-standing interests in theater, and her early performances combining dolls with texts by Zora Neale Hurston and others. Her work as a performance artist led to her role as Eula in the film Daughters of the Dust. She then studied playwriting, musical theater, and history at Brown University, NYU, and Bard College respectively. Rogers’s influences include surrealist painters, magic realism, such writers as Adrienne Kennedy, Ralph Ellison, and Federico Garcia Lorca, and the Gullah/Geechee culture of the Sea Islands of South Carolina and Georgia. She uses both dolls and puppets in …

Servance Dancers, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

How many African American folk artists have created performing objects outside the purview of formal theater? Master woodcarver George Servance is one such 20th-century artist who used his skills to counter minstrel stereotypes and present African Americans as elegant and accomplished entertainers.

Raceless Racism: Blackface Minstrelsy In American Puppetry, Amber West

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Blackface minstrelsy has long been recognized as one of the major elements of 19th and early 20th-century popular performance in the U.S., but its central role in U.S. puppetry has not been explored. West debunks the idea that puppets are “raceless”, examining the origins of blackface minstrelsy in American puppetry, including traditional Punch and Judy performances, William John Bullock’s 19th-century puppet minstrel shows, the creation of “realistic” Black puppets by white puppeteers in the early 20th century, and contemporary examples of exaggerated Black puppet characters, for example in a music video directed by Black artist Boots Riley. West points out …

Storytelling And Puppetry, Susan Fulcher

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

Librarian Susan Fulcher recounts the creation of a storytelling with puppets program she developed with puppeteer Dave Herzog, in which kids create their own puppet characters to be incorporated into existing stories such as Stone Soup.

“It’S Not Easy Bein’ Green”: Greenface And The Jazzy Frog Trope, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

One element of blackface minstrelsy was the representation of Black people as swamp characters, especially frogs. In her examination of the development of the “jazzy frog” as a transposition of greenface onto blackface, Richards traces the growth of the trope in popular film and cartoons of the early 20th century. She then considers Jim Henson’s creation of the popular puppet character Kermit as a variation on this trope, but with a different purpose: to represent Henson’s “vision of tolerance for difference and creative collaboration.” The “re-humanization” of the jazzy frog includes the 1967 hit song “I’m in Love with a …

Wear The Story Like A Jacket: Akbar Imhotep, Paulette Richards

Living Objects: African American Puppetry Essays

This profile of Akbar Imhotep’s work as a puppeteer and storyteller in Atlanta in the late 20th century describes his connections to the Center for Puppetry Arts, the folk-art roots of his approach to puppetry, the unique puppet stage he made from old suitcases, and the process he uses to prepare for performances.