L98 330S Topics in Gender & American Culture: Native Sons & Daughters: Gender, Sexuality and African-American Culture
Whether you are interested in literature, film, music, or performance art, this class has you covered!
Each week we feature a different medium of cultural production as our primary site to analyze the intersection of race, gender, and sexuality. Our texts will range from the novels of Zora Neale Hurston to the music of Nina Simone, from theories of WEB Dubois to the films of Jordan Peele. One of the central goals of the class is to learn how to read cultural texts as both vivid reflections and critical producers of the world around us.
This was the very first class I ever designed and taught, and after many years of teaching it, it is still my favorite way to expose students to an array of great artists and thinkers and engage in thoughtful dialogue about race, gender, and sexuality in America. I am excited to read the graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler's Kindred. Last year students loved comparing the prose of the original novel with the visuals of the graphic novel, and I was moved by the insights of their thoughtful comparative analysis. I am also excited to be including songs by OutKast and The Roots. It is amazing that my childhood soundtrack is now my syllabus.
Zachary Manditch-Prottas is a lecturer in American Culture Studies and African and African-American Studies. He earned his doctorate in African American Studies from the University of California, Berkeley. His research and teaching work at the nexus of African American literature, Black cultural studies, and theories of gender and sexuality.
