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Academic Year 2005/2006


Ethnography of Black America
AFAM 252 SP

Crosslistings:
ANTH 252
AMST 269

How should we understand transformations in black American identity, community and politics since the 1960s? This course examines the changing contours of black America in the post civil rights era, and how academics, journalists and artists have analyzed those changes through ethnographies, films, music and memoirs. How have black Americans experienced the deepening class-divides in the post civil rights era? How have notions of black masculinity been transformed as industrial working class jobs have disappeared and increasing numbers of black men find themselves in the criminal justice system? How are generational divides affecting black communities? How have black politics changed since the civil rights movement. We will pay close attention to the ways ethnographies have tried to influence, and been influenced by, public policy debates about the problems facing black America. What has been the role of ethnographies in making and unmaking notions of a black underclass or culture of poverty? How have ethnographers and documentary makers tried to project the voices of women on welfare or young men hustling in the informal economy into contemporary political and policy debates? What stories have been ignored as ethnographers mapped the problems facing black America?

MAJOR READINGS

John Gwaltney, DRYLONGSO: A SELF-PORTRAIT OF BLACK AMERICA
Elijah Anderson, STREETWISE: RACE, CLASS AND CHANGE IN AN URBAN COMMUNITY
Mary Pattillo-McCoy, BLACK PICKETT FENCES: PRIVILEGE AND PERIL AMONG THE BLACK MIDDLE
Ann Ferguson, BAD BOYS: SCHOOLING AND THE MAKING OF BLACK MASCULINITY
Elaine Bell Kaplan, NOT OUR KIND OF GIRL: UNRAVELING THE MYTHS OF BLACK TEENAGE MOTHERHOOD
Carole Stack, CALL TO HOME: AFRICAN AMERICANS RECLAIM THE RURAL SOUTH
Steven Gregory, BLACK CORONA: RACE AND THE POLITICS OF PLAEIN AN URBAN COMMUNITY
Robin Kelley, YO MAMA'S DYSFUNKTIONAL: FIGHTING THE CULTURE WARS IN URBAN AMERICA

Films:
Black Is, Black Ain't
Harlem Diaries
Twilight Los Angeles
Do the Right Thing

EXAMINATIONS AND ASSIGNMENTS

Two 6-7 page papers, occasional weekly short writing assignments and a final exam.

COURSE FORMAT: Lecture/Discussion

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-30-2006


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