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Academic Year 2001/2002

Youth Culture and Consumption
AFAM 325 FA
Crosslistings:
ANTH 324
AMST 325

This course examines how youth use music, fashion, film, and television in forming social identities and subcultures in a variety of settings. We will concentrate on acts of leisure and consumption by African American and African Caribbean youth, comparing them to their white American and British counterparts. While our focus will be on modern youth, we will situate our discussion by starting with the notion of "coming of age" in pre-industrial societies. We will address questions such as: Befor e the emergence of mass-mediated cultural products, how did youth make sense of themselves within their environments? How do modern adolescents use cultural products in forming their gender and ethnic identies? We will analyze the meanings youth invoke from popular cultural products and explore the relationship between black youth subcultures and the dominant cultural systems of which they are a part.

MAJOR READINGS

Amit-Talai, Vered and Helena Wulff, eds 1995 - YOUTH CULTURES: A CROSS CULTURAL PERSPECTIVE. London: Routledge.
Gilroy, Paul - 1993 - THE BLACK ATLANTIC: MODERNITY AND DOUBLE CONSCIOUSNESS. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press.
Hall, Stuart and Tony Jefferson, eds. 1998 RESISTANCE THROUGH RITUALS: YOUTH SUBCULTURES IN POST-WAR BRITAIN. London, England: Routledge.
McRobbie, Angela - 1999 - IN THE CULTURE SOCIETY: ART, FASHION AND POPULAR MUSIC. London and New York: Routledge.

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

2 in-class oral presentations
mid-term paper
final paper (20-25 pages) using the same theme as the mid-term paper

ADDITIONAL REQUIREMENTS and/or COMMENTS

This course counts toward African American Studies' and Anthropology's research requirements.

Unless preregistered students attend the first class meeting or communicate directly with the instructor prior to the first class, they will be dropped from the class list. NOTE: Students must still submit a completed Drop/Add form to the Registrar's Office.

COURSE FORMAT: Seminar

REGISTRATION INFORMATION

Level: UGRD    Credit: 1    Gen Ed Area Dept: SBS AFAM    Grading Mode: Graded   

Prerequisites: NONE Links to Web Resources For This Course.

Last Updated on MAR-19-2002

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