African American Culture

Sweepin’ Spirits: Power and Transformation on the Plantation Landscape

by Whitney Battle-Baptiste

Charlatans Chicanery

by Mohamed Eno

Thr poem is an excerpt from my forthcoming volume Guilt of Otherness

The volume is under review with a subject area expert and a literary critic. The volume is under review with a subject area expert and a literary critic.

Review of ‘Queer in Black and White: Interraciality, Same Sex Desire, and Contemporary African American Culture,’ by Stefanie K. Dunning

by Benjamin Grimwood

‘Black Camera’ 3, no. 2 (2012): 217-219

Criminal lifestyles, sexuality and the martial arts Appropriating blaxploitation in hip-hop music videos

by Rachel Mizsei Ward

BAAS 2012 (Manchester University)
Cine Excess 2012

Hip-hop culture has been heavily influenced by blaxploitation. This cycle of films embodied excess through their... more Hip-hop culture has been heavily influenced by blaxploitation. This cycle of films embodied excess through their glamorous black heroes, with elaborate costumes and violent, sexualised stories. This is emulated in hip-hop and specifically gangsta rap which frequently use lyrics emphasising violence and sexual themes and performers engage in excessive displays of clothing and jewellery.  It therefore seems appropriate that hip-hop artists should also appropriate blaxploitation films in their music videos. Blaxploitation appears to feed into a shared global identity for black hip-hop stars who reference it in their work, as well as something that is still relevant for a wider black community. This runs counter to the expectations of the fans of cult texts and alternative music genres. It is suggested that both are ‘frequently marginalised, white, middle class, and well educated’ (Cherry 2010: 132).

There are several examples but this article will concentrate on two, the video for Who Cares (2006) by Gnarls Barkley which references Scream, Blacula, Scream (1973); and Beggin’ (2008) by Madcon which references several key blaxploitation films, including Coffy (1973), Foxy Brown (1974), Shaft (1971), and Superfly (1972). Cherry argues that ‘many music videos make references to other narratives in order to strengthen the otherwise "weak narrative chain" and these may well depend upon the shared cultural competencies of the viewer’ (Cherry 2010: 125). The paper will consider this and look at key elements including the concentration on criminality, black sexuality and the martial arts.


Reference:

Brigid Cherry, ‘From Cult to Subculture: Re imaginings of Cult Films in alternative Music Video’, in Cultural Borrowings: Appropriation, Reworking, Transformation ed. by Ian Robert Smith, (Scope e-book, 2009) pp. 124-137. <http://www.scope.nottingham.ac.uk/cultborr/Cultural_Borrowings_Final.pdf>; [accessed 20 January 2010]

The Religious Racial Integration of African Americans into Diverse Churches

by Gerardo Marti

Recent scholarship asserts that members of racial groups can transcend their ethnic differences, but other research... more Recent scholarship asserts that members of racial groups can transcend their ethnic differences, but other research asserts that ethnoracial identities must be reinforced in order to participate in multiracial churches. Analysis of field notes and interview data from a large, black-white Protestant congregation shows that while the core membership of African Americans come specifically for its ethnic and racial diversity, they also look for markers that affirm a distinctive African-American experience. Ethnic reinforcement attracts highly race-conscious participants who eventually move toward processes of ethnic transcendence and congregational integration. The value for researchers is that distinguishing ethnically transcendent and ethnically reinforcing processes encourages the discovery of subtle, racially specific, and continually reinforced affinities that would otherwise remain hidden in seemingly ethnically transcendent settings.

The Veils of the Law: Race and Sexuality in Nella Larsen's Passing

by Corinne Blackmer

Introduction to African American Culture Syllabus

by Kevin Michael Foster

The Emergence of Buddhism in Africa [Thai Version]

by Patra 黄博 Suwanwatthana

กําเนิดพทุ ธศําสนําในแอฟริกํา(ฉบับปรับปรุงล่ําสุด) ตอนที่ 1 กําเนิดพทุ ธศําสนําในแอฟริกํา(ฉบับปรับปรุงล่ําสุด) ตอนที่ 1

Thesis: Black for a Second- Chapter One

by Pat Edwards

Stand In Awe: A Parable About Love, Youth, & Change

by Horace Columbus Neal II

Draft N: December 9, 2011 - It is finished.

This is a simple three-page short story that calls for a reflection on the core need of today's troubled youth. In 36... more This is a simple three-page short story that calls for a reflection on the core need of today's troubled youth. In 36 CE, a group of rowdy, Cushite-Hebrew youths go to see the Roman crucifixions, hoping to have some fun taunting the victims. Their encounter at one man's cross causes them to stand in awe. Notes and images follow the narrative to aid the readers' conceptualization of some of the story's themes. The story is thematically multilayered to facilitate productive discussions on a number of topics.

Keepers of The Faith: Toward an African American Holistic Christian Theology

by Glenn L. Campbell

This paper has been published in the academic multilingual Africanus Journal Vol. 3, No. 2 November 2011; Gordonconwell-Theological Seminary, Center for Urban Ministerial Education (CUME), Boston, Massachusetts

Liberation as a central interpretive motif for Black Theology falls short in aiding the development and... more
Liberation as a central interpretive motif for Black Theology falls short in aiding the development and articulation of a systematized Holistic Christian Theology that is both liberating and redeeming for the Christian church in general and the Black Church in particular. This essay introduces a way forward for the revitalization of African American Christianity and evangelical Black Theology. This essay is the genesis of an African American Holistic Christian Theology that is both liberating and redeeming. It includes a brief historical background of the Black Church and the development of its theology. It articulates a way of studying Christian doctrine within an African American holistic evangelical context.  It defines theology and African American Holistic Christian Theology. It sets forth the task, sources, norm and method of a system that will ensure that Black Theology remains within confine of certain biblical and traditional confessions that makes for holistic study of God.

Naming Streets for Martin Luther King, Jr.: No easy road

by Derek Alderman

Alderman, Derek H. 2006. “Naming Streets after Martin Luther King, Jr.: No Easy Road.” Landscape and Race in the United States, Routledge Press (edited by Richard Schein), pp. 213-236.

Creating a New Geography of Memory in the South:(Re) naming of Streets in Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.

by Derek Alderman

Alderman, Derek H. 1996. “Creating a New Geography of Memory in the South: The (Re) Naming of Streets in Honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.” Southeastern Geographer 36(1): 51-69.

Street names and the Scaling of Memory: The Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr within the African American Community

by Derek Alderman

Alderman, Derek H. 2003. “Street Names and the Scaling of Memory: The Politics of Commemorating Martin Luther King, Jr. within the African-American Community.” Area 35(2): 163-173.

The Ultimate Penultimate in 'The Color Purple'

by Diepiriye Kuku-Siemons

Popmatters.com

In a true Holly wood ending, Shug’s story would have ended when she burst into the church to face her father -- her... more In a true Holly wood ending, Shug’s story would have ended when she burst into the church to face her father -- her community, kids, kin and parish. “Reverend Lee, do it to me,” she would have said in the typical Hollywood version, if not for the strong narrative of Alice Walker’s story. And we know what “it” means. “Do it,” is the most middle-school euphemism for f*cking.

Purity, Soul Food, and Sunni Islam: Explorations at the Intersection of Consumption and Resistance

by Janet Hoskins

co-authored with Carolyn Rouse of Princeton University

Contemporary African American followers of Sunni Islam are self-consciously articulating a form of eating that they... more Contemporary African American followers of Sunni Islam are self-consciously articulating a form of eating that they see as liberating them from the heritage of slavery, while also bringing them into conformity with Islamic notions of purity. In so doing, they participate in arguments about the meaning of "soul food," the relation between "Western" materialism and "Eastern" spirituality, and bodily health and its relation to mental liberation. Debates within the African American Muslim community show us how an older anthropological concern with food taboos can be opened up to history and to the experience of the past reinterpreted in terms of the struggles of the present.

Voices Underground: Hip Hop as Black Rhetoric

by Marcia Dawkins

just found this oldie but goodie through Brown's awesome ILL system...

In this article I use metaphoric criticism as a framework for a content analysis of 1990s underground hip hop lyrics.... more In this article I use metaphoric criticism as a framework for a content analysis of 1990s underground hip hop lyrics. Findings suggest that form equals argument: that meaning and identity reside in no one place, but reappear often on the surface of quotidian experience.

A Review of African-American Seminal Research

by Onyx Taylor

This paper will be presented during the scholar-to-scholar session of the National Communication Association's 97th Annual Convention in New Orleans November 17-20.

This review of African-American seminal research seeks common themes among research and how the themes are related to... more This review of African-American seminal research seeks common themes among research and how the themes are related to media representation of African-American communication. Common themes among research are identified and grouped into three different groups based on how the research relates to African-American self-identification, self-actualization and internalization. The groups are named metaphorically named as to represent different aspects of African-American hair politics: good hair, nappy hair and natural hair. These three groups represent Higgins (1987) concepts of self; actual self, ideal self and ought self.

Trust No One (On the Internet): The CIA-Crack-Contra Conspiracy Theory and Professional Journalism

by Jack Bratich

TELEVISION & NEW MEDIA
Vol. 5 No. 2, May2004 109–139

This article examines the “metastory” surrounding Gary Webb’s 1996 “Dark Alliance” series as a moment of crisis in... more This article examines the “metastory” surrounding Gary Webb’s 1996 “Dark Alliance” series as a moment of crisis in mainstream journalism. Two forces converge in Webb’s series and its aftermath: (1) establishment journalism confronts and manages the reemergent phenomenon of conspiracy theory, and (2) establishment print-based journalism attempts to organize a relationship with the emergent medium of the internet. When these two forces collide in the profession, conspiracy theories and the web end up mutually defining each other. This problematization of a conspiracy theory has multiple effects—not only in disqualifying the story itself but in reshaping the profession of journalism in its relation to new technology.
Eschewing technological determinism, this article demonstrates how a new technology is made sensible through a professional discourse as a way of making itmanageable. In turn, professional journalism operates as technical expertise in a liberal political rationality of “governing at a distance.”

“Black Orientalism and Black Gods of the Metropolis,” in Edward E. Curtis IV and Danielle Brune Sigler, editors, The New Black Gods: Arthur Huff Fauset and the Study of African American Religions (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, June 2009), 116-142.

by Jacob Dorman

This will be part of a second book.

This chapter identifies a substratum of self-titled "professors of Oriental and African mystic science" who... more This chapter identifies a substratum of self-titled "professors of Oriental and African mystic science" who collaborated with each other and created new identities in the context of the marketplace, the Marcus Garvey movement, Orientalism, and influences as diverse as occultism, Spiritualism, Pentecostalism, Freemasonry, Anglo-Israelism, Judaism, and
Islam. The specter of African Americans adopting and using Orientalism puts a different twist on the concept.  The discourse of civilization was rarely simply rejected or resisted outright; rather it was recycled and reformulated. For at least some African Americans, adopting Orientalist identities could express anti-imperialist political sympathies, expand personal freedom, and even allow criticism of the West's conceit to be more civilized and technologically superior to the rest of the world.

Black Orientalists triangulated between dark and light by reaching outside of America, in an attempt to overcome American racism and criticize the dominant discourse of civilization.  The work shows that Harlem's networks of religious practitioners used religious, magical, and ideological systems to help create Black Israelism, Rastafarianism, Father Divine's movement, and some early forms of Black Islam. Orientalism is a construct that can help us to reconceptualize and reconnect many of the "Black Gods of the Metropolis."  Read in the larger contexts of the Harlem Renaissance and the migration of rural
peoples into the quickened pace of Northern cities, this approach suggests that there was a rich substratum of working class cultural creativity that deserves to be read into the history of the literary and artistic Harlem Renaissance.  It challenges us to think of working class African Americans not merely as workers or migrants, but as organic intellectuals capable of voicing their own dreams, mysticism and religions that were articulate responses to the key concerns of the age.