How do political imaginaries in (but not necessarily exclusively of) the United States relate to the mostly instrumental, improvised, some would say Afrological, music we often call jazz? In which ways do jazz performance, experimentation, and vocabulary express and inflect visions of social critique and transformation?

 

Focusing on improvised music and political imaginaries of the period between 1950-1980, this seminar explores the overlapping and mutually constituted dimensions of race, gender, social class, sexuality, and nationality, as indexes of political orientation. Emphasis will be placed on gendered blackness as a set of enabling practices that, while addressing structural and longstanding facets of imposed marginalization, projects modes of social organization through musical statements and theorizations.

 

Central questions to be explored revolve around whether, how, and why a political critique is articulated, and a yet-to-be social world becomes graspable through certain manifestations of jazz.

 

Formal musical knowledge if not required; we will agree on key terms and definitions with which you can frame your perspective on the recordings, readings, and during our dialogues.

 

 

Seminar Dynamics

 

All participants upload, via blackboard, a one- to two-page thought piece on the readings and the pertinent music. Choose a record that is related to the reading(s) (either directly referenced or that pertains to the time period and/or genre discussed), and incorporate your take on the music (a specific song from the record, and/or the record’s aural project) into the thought piece.

 

Reflect on what you hear, and listen to what you write and read.

 

When selecting the tunes, listen to its specificities: form, or apparent absence of form, the way it is performed, the musicians’ interaction, and how, if at all, a political statement is made with or in spite of the music. The record’s liner notes (as indeed its layout and graphic art) are often important sources of information about the recording session’s circumstances, inspiration, and personnel. So-called “jazz photographs” are another telling source, including those taken by musicians themselves. Bassist Milt Hinton, for example, produced a vast pictorial archive during his unusually long career.

 

Please upload your thought piece by 11:59p on the Tuesday before class.

 

Seminar participants should bring copies of their report to their colleagues.

 

The reports should be a brief, but focused discussion of one topic that you found relevant and compelling. The topic should bridge the reading(s) and the music. Try to be as specific as possible; remember that your colleagues will also write short reports, so creative angles on the texts and music will help to produce unique and complementary vignettes.

 

One person will be responsible for initiating and structuring the seminar. The person responsible for the seminar brings a one-page set of reflections (which every participant does) and additional questions to structure the discussion.

 

Typically, the seminar dynamic will include of the following:

 

10-15 min: overview of the reading, and identification of key insights

20-30 min: listening of relevant composition(s) and discussion of record it belongs to

60-90 min: statement of questions and dialogue

10-15 min: definition of one topic for final discussion

20-30 min: final thoughts, conclusions

 

The presenter will be responsible to keep time (and other participants should help)

 

Here is a good (generative) example of a question/thought:

Bebop marks a break from swing inasmuch it requires from performers a distinct, expanded awareness of chords and chord progressions, syncopation, and improvisation. At the same time, bebop attempts to interrupt the white-dominated commodification of music by linking a certain sound to performance and production schemes that seek relative black autonomy. How, if at all, are bebop aesthetic related to/infused by/generator of (representations and practices of) gendered blackness? If we consider politics in a broader sense – as that which impacts configurations of power and the demarcation of publics – What types of political projects do such modalities of gendered blackness suggest?

 

A bad example of a question/thought:

What is bebop? How do you think bebop performers transform key concepts of swing and earlier manifestations of jazz?

 

When you prepare for the seminar, please avoid focusing on what you consider the writer or performer’s “wrong” or “limited” approach. Instead, listen/search for the logic(s), assumptions (or assumptive logics), motivation, intentions and/or consequences in the written and aural performance. 

Grade

Weekly short reports: 55%

Participation: 15%

Presentations: 15%

Final reflection piece (5 pages): 15%

 

Books/texts

I will make the texts and books available up until week 8; from then on, you are responsible to find the readings. When possible, I will have the books beyond week 8 on reserve at the PCL library for 2-hour consultation.

 

Course structure

 

Weeks 1-4

Swing, bebop: Coleman Hawkins, Dizzy Gillespie, Thelonious Monk, Billie Holiday, Abbey Lincoln

 

Weeks 5-7

Afrological principles, Charles Mingus, Miles Davis, black heteronormative/homosocial masculinity

 

Weeks 8-10

Bebop, postbop: modality, black nationalism, John Coltrane, Wayne Shorter, free improvised music

 

Weeks 11-14

Experimental music, harmolodics, space, and alternative sociabilities: AACM, Ornette Coleman, Don Cherry, Horace Tapscott

 

 

 

Reading and discussion schedule

 

Week 1) (Jan 17

Introduction and assignments

Notes, scales, chords, progressions, timbre

Charlie Parker: “music is melody, harmony, and rhythm.”

11-15hrs/day of work into the horn

 

Week 2) (Jan 24

Presenter

 

Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1997)

Introduction and Part One (Coleman Hawkins)

 

 

Recommended

Eric Porter, What is this Thing Called Jazz? African American Musicians and their Ideas

(Berkeley and Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2001)

Available online. Introduction, chapters 1 and 2 (D. Gillespie)

 

 

Week 3) (Jan 31

Presenter

 

Robin Kelley, Thelonious Monk: The Life and Times of an American Original (New

York: Free Press, 2009), pp. 60-142.

 

Amiri Baraka, “The High Priest of Bebop.” In Digging (Berkeley: U of California Press,

2009), pp. 222-235.

 

Angela Y. Davis, Blues legacies and Black feminism : Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, Bessie

Smith, and Billie Holiday (New York: Pantheon Books, 1998), pp. 3-42, 161-198. (B. Holiday)

 

Farah Griffin, If You Can't be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (New

York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 193-198. (B. Holiday)

 

Amiri Baraka, “Billie Holiday.” In Digging (Berkeley: U of California Press, 2009), pp.

219-221.

 

 

Week 4) (Feb 7          

Presenter

 

Eric Porter, “Straight Ahead: Abbey Lincoln and the Challenge of Jazz Singing.” In What

is this Thing Called Jazz, pp. 149-190 (available online)

 

Amiri Baraka, “Abbey Lincoln.” In Digging (Berkeley: U of California Press, 2009), pp.

295-303.

 

Fred Moten, In the Break:The Aesthetics of the Black Radical Tradition (Minneapolis: U

of Minnesota Press, 2003), pp. 1-24.

 

Farah Griffin, If You Can't be Free, Be a Mystery: In Search of Billie Holiday (New

York: The Free Press, 2001), pp. 161-191. (Abbey Lincoln)

 

 

 

Recommended

Sherrie Tucker, Swing Shift: All Girl Bands of the 1940s (Durham: Duke University

Press, 2000)

Graham Lock, Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of

Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999)

Part II Duke Ellington: Tone Parallels

 

Amiri Baraka, Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical Music (Berkeley:

U of California Press, 2009)

            Chapters 46, 47 (On Duke Ellington)

Wynton Marsalis and Robert G. O’Meally “Duke Ellington: ‘Music Like a Big Hot Pot

of Good Gumbo.” In R. O’Meally, ed., The Jazz Cadence of American Culture (New York: Columbia U Press, 1998), pp. 143-153.

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The Making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2000)

Randy Weston, African Rhythms: The Autobiography of Randy Weston (Durham: Duke

University Press, 2010)

Assata Shakur, Assata: an Autobiography (Westport, Conn: L. Hill, 1987)

 

 

Week 5) (Feb 14

Presenter

 

Scott DeVeaux, The Birth of Bebop: A Social and Musical History (Berkeley: University

of California Press, 1997)

            Part Two: Professional After Hours: Young Black Musicians in the 1940s.

 

Eric Lott, “Double V, Double-Time: Bebop’s Politics of Style.” In R. O’Meally, ed., The

Jazz Cadence of American Culture (New York: Columbia U Press, 1998), pp. 457-467.

 

Nichole T. Rustin, “’Blow, Man, Blow!’ Representing Gender, White Primitives, and

Jazz Melodrama through A Young Man with a Horn.” In N. T. Rustin and S. Tucker, eds, Big Ears: Listening to Gender in Jazz Studies (Durham: Duke U Press, 2008), pp. 361-392.

 

George Lewis, “Improvised Music after 1950: Afrological and Eurological Perspectives.”

Black Music Research Journal, Vol. 16, no. 1, 1996.

 

 

Recommended

George Jackson, Blood in My Eye (Baltimore, MD: Black Classic Press,[1972] 1990)

Assata Shakur, Assata: an Autobiography (Westport, Conn: L. Hill, 1987).

 

 

 

 

Week 6) (Feb 21

Presenter

 

Charles Mingus, Beneath the Underdog (New York: Knopf, 1971), selections

 

Nat Hentoff, “ Charles Mingus.” In N. Hentoff, The Jazz Life (New York: Da Capo,

1961), pp. 157-169.

 

Ekkerhard Jost, “Charles Mingus.” In Free Jazz (New York: Da Capo, 1994), pp. 35-43.

 

Eric Porter, “’Passion of a Man’: The Poetics and Politics and Charles Mingus.” In What

is this Thing Called Jazz, pp. 101-148 (available online)

 

Recommended

Ingrid Monson, Saying Something: Jazz Improvisation and interaction (Chicago, U of

Chicago Press, 1996)

Barbara Ransby, Ella Baker and the Black Freedom Movement: A Radical Democratic

Vision (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2003)

 

 

Week 7) (Feb 28

Presenter

 

Miles Davis and Quincy Troupe, Miles, the Autobiography (New York: Simon and

Schuster, 1989), selections

 

Amiri Baraka, “Miles Later.” In Digging: The Afro-American Soul of American Classical

Music (Berkeley: U of California Press, 2009), pp. 9-18.

 

Ashley Kahn, Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece (New York, Da

Capo Pr, 2007), selections

 

Bill Evans, liner notes to Kind of Blue (in O’Meally, The Jazz Cadence of American

Culture and other publications), pp. 269-270

 

 

 

Week 8) (March 7

Presenter

 

Listen to/watch Brandford Marsalis’s approach to the “A Love Supreme” suite

 

Amiri Baraka, “A Jazz Great: John Coltrane,” and “Coltrane Live at Birdland.” In A.

Baraka, Black Music (New York: Da Capo [1968] 1998), pp. 56-68.

 

Frank Kofsky, John Coltrane and the Jazz Revolution of the 1960s (New York:

Pathfinder, [1970] 1998), selections

 

Ekkehard Jost, “John Coltrane and Modal Playing.” In Free Jazz (New York: Da Capo,

1994), pp. 17-34.

 

Herman Gray, “John Coltrane and the Practice of Freedom.” In Leonard Brown, ed. John

Coltrane & Black America’s Quest for Freedom: Spirituality and the Music (Oxford: Oxford U Press, 2010), pp. 33-54.

 

Ashley Kahn, A Love Supreme: The Story of John Coltrane’s Signature Album (New

York: Viking, 2002), selections

 

 

Recommended

Chris DeVito (Ed.), Coltrane on Coltrane: The John Coltrane Interviews (Chicago:

Chicago Review Press, 2010)

Lewis Porter, John Coltrane: His Life and Music (Ann Arbor: University of Michigan

Press, 1998)

 

 

March 14 no class: spring break

 

 

Week 9) (March 21

Presenter

 

Ajay Heble, Landing on the Wrong Note: Jazz, Dissonance and Critical Practice (New

York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 29-62

 

Valerie Wilmer, “Cecil Taylor – Eighty-Eight Tuned Drums;” “Albert Ayler – Spiritual

Unity;” and “As Serious as Your Life.” In As Serious as Your Life: John Coltrane and Beyond (London: Serpent’s Tail [1977] 1992), pp. 45-59, 92-111, 129-152.

 

Amiri Baraka, “Cecil Taylor.” In Black Music (New York: Da Capo [1968] 1998), pp.

104-112.

 

  

Recommended

Huey P. Newton, Revolutionary Suicide (New York: Harcourt Brace, 1973)

Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice (New York: McGraw-Hill, 1967).

 

 

Week 10) (March 28

Presenter

 

Amiri Baraka, “Introducing Wayne Shorter.” In Black Music (New York: Da Capo

[1968] 1998), pp. 81-86

 

Michelle Mercer, Footprints: The Life and Work of Wayne Shorter (New York: Penguin,

2007), selections

 

 

Week 11) (April 4

Presenter

 

Ekkehard Jost, “Sun Ra.” In Free Jazz (New York: Da Capo, 1994), pp. 180-199.

 

John F. Szwed, Space is the Place: The Lives and Times of Sun Ra (New York: Da Capo,

1998), selections

 

Valerie Wilmer, “Sun Ra – Pictures of Infinity.” In As Serious as Your Life: John

Coltrane and Beyond (London: Serpent’s Tail [1977] 1992), pp. 74-91.

 

Graham Lock, Blutopia: Visions of the Future and Revisions of the Past in the Work of

Sun Ra, Duke Ellington, and Anthony Braxton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1999)

Part I Sun Ra: A Starward Eye, pp. 13-74.

 

 

 

Week 12) (April 11

Presenter

 

Valerie Wilmer, “The AACM – Chicago’s Alternative Society.” In As Serious as Your

Life: John Coltrane and Beyond (London: Serpent’s Tail [1977] 1992), pp. 112-126.

 

George Lewis, A Power Stronger than Itself: The AACM and American Experimental

Music (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2008), selections.

 

 

Recommended

Clora Bryant et al., (eds.), Central Avenue sounds : jazz in Los Angeles (Berkeley :

University of California Press, 1998).

Horace Tapscott, Songs of the Unsung: The Musical and Social Journey of Horace

Tapscott (Durham: Duke University Press, 2001), pp.

 

 

Week 13) (April 18

Presenter

 

Amiri Baraka, “Don Cherry.” In Black Music (New York: Da Capo [1968] 1998), pp.

162-171.

 

Peter Niklas Wilson, Ornette Coleman: His Life and His Music (Berkeley: Berkeley Hill

Books, 1999), foreword (Pat Metheny), and pp. 1-102.

 

 

Week 14) (April 25

Presenter

 

Fred Ho, Wicked Theory, Naked Practice: A Fred Ho Reader (Minneapolis: U of

Minnesota Press, 2009), selections

 

Ajay Heble, “Up for Grabs: the Ethicopolitical Authority of Jazz;” and “Conclusion.” In

Landing on the Wrong Note: Jazz, Dissonance and Critical Practice (New York: Routledge, 2000), pp. 199-237

 

Week 15) (May 2

Discuss papers + Ken Burn’s “Jazz” + conclusions

 

 

 

 

In this course, we will discuss historical and contemporary studies that provide arguments about the connections between race, poverty, and the criminal justice system.  More specifically, our readings and discussions will provide perspectives through which to understand not only how and why acts of police violence, questionable court proceedings, and unjust sentences routinely take place, but also why and how they are often sanctioned by society at large.  What historical and contemporary circumstances explain and are necessarily connected to the acquittal of the officers involved in the killing of Diallo?  What historical and contemporary circumstances explain the brutality and subsequent acquittal of the officers involved in the beating of Rodney King in 1991?  As we will see, not only can such examples be multipied ad nauseam, but also their connections become evident once we comprehend how society and its institutions (re)produce representations and practices that often take race, age, class, and gender as markers of expected behavior.

 

Questioning assumptions of both United States liberals and conservatives with respect to racial injustice, critical race theorists have presented alternative perspectives that seek connections between race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. By investigating the facets of white supremacy and its subordination of non-white racialized social groups, critical race theorists aim to both present analyses of power differentials as to encourage and participate in collective action that challenge such power differentials.

To expand and contrast the initial perspectives on critical race theory offered in the volume edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw et al., we will discuss whether, how, and why other progressive intellectuals/activists anticipated, elaborated and/or criticized those perspectives. Particular attention will be given to how the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class are experienced both within and outside the U.S., and how such experiences and their theorizations challenge hegemonic racial constructions and their consequences. 

This course serves as an introduction to questions related to the nature and process of global white supremacy. Readings and debates will focus on the ways in which white supremacy depends and builds on, while often veiling, its patriarchal heteronormative anti-black foundations.

 

In this course, we will examine historical and contemporary studies that provide arguments about the connections between race, poverty, and the criminal justice system. More specifically, our readings and discussions will provide perspectives through which to understand not only how and why acts of police violence, questionable court proceedings, and unjust sentences routinely take place, but also why and how they are often sanctioned by society at large. What historical and contemporary circumstances explain and are necessarily connected to the acquittal of the officers involved in the killings of Diallo, Bell, Sanders, and so many others? What historical and contemporary circumstances explain the brutality and subsequent acquittal of the officers involved in the beating of Rodney King in 1991? Such examples suggest recurring patterns that point to ways in which society and its institutions (re)produce representations and practices that often take race, age, class, and gender as markers of expected behavior.

 Questioning assumptions of both liberals and conservatives with respect to racial injustice, critical race theorists have presented alternative perspectives that seek connections between race, gender, class, and sexual orientation. By investigating the facets of white supremacy and its subordination of people of color, critical race theorists aim not only to present analyses of power differentials but also, and as importantly, to change such power differentials through collective action.To expand and contrast the initial perspectives on critical race theory offered in the volume edited by Kimberlé Crenshaw et al., we will discuss whether, how, and why other progressive intellectuals/activists anticipated, elaborated and/or criticized those perspectives. Particular attention will be given to how the intersections of gender, sexuality, race, and class are experienced both within and outside the U.S., and how such experiences and their theorizations challenge hegemonic racial constructions and their consequences.  

This course seeks to provide participants with an overview of the theories, histories, and politics of the African Diaspora in the Americas.  The main themes of the course – the histories, politics, and knowledges of the African Diaspora in the Americas from the perspective of black peoples – are often excluded from academic and public debates.  This course intends to fill such void.  Participants of the course, lectures and debates will be expected to master and apply concepts necessary to understand and intervene in the struggles of black peoples in the Americas.The course is divided in the following four modules:I.    Routes and Roots of the African Diaspora (Theory I)II.    Race, Gender, and Sexuality in the African Diaspora (Theory II)III.    Foundations of Critical Black Thought and PraxisIV.   Engaging the Local, the National, and the Transnational: Black Politics and Identity (Ethnographic Project)

In this course, we will discuss historical and contemporary studies that provide arguments about the connections between race, poverty, and the criminal justice system. More specifically, our readings and discussions will provide perspectives through which to understand not only how and why acts of police violence, questionable court proceedings, and unjust sentences routinely take place, but also why and how they are often sanctioned by society at large. What historical and contemporary circumstances explain and are necessarily connected to the acquittal of the officers involved in the killing of Diallo? What historical and contemporary circumstances explain the brutality and subsequent acquittal of the officers involved in the beating of Rodney King in 1991? As we will see, not only can such examples be multiplied ad nauseam, but also their connections become evident once we comprehend how society and its institutions (re) produce representations and practices that often take race, age, class, and gender as markers of expected behavior.

RACE AND SOCIAL CHANGE

ANT 324L 30470/AFR 374 D 35780 FALL 2009

Tu-Thurs 2-330 Bur 134

 

João H. Costa Vargas

EPS 2.112 A

E-mail: costavargas@mail.utexas.edu

 

The main objective of this course is to comprehend the historical background and the contemporary circumstances within which progressive political projects emerge and become effective. Since the political organizations and perspectives we will be focusing on are rooted in the racialized cities within which they struggle, we will also investigate the ways in which our experiences with race are shaped by the necessary politicization of urban space, and how our experiences with urban space become inflected by race. If there exist hopes for a more equitable society, such hopes must be grounded in a comprehension of the political perspectives emerging out of radical and inclusive critiques of life in the city.

 

This course is organized around the following topics: 1) how urban spatial relations both encourage and inhibit the formation of racial and ethnic identities; 2) how public policies give a spatial dimension to ethnic and racial experiences; 3) how urban culture registers the points of division and unity in city life; and 4) how political projects of social change elaborated by members of underprivileged communities emerge from and challenge power relations at the local, national, and transnational levels. 

 

 

Required texts

Books are available at the Resistencia Bookstore: 1801 S 1st St # A, Austin, TX 78704-4255,  tel.: 416-8885. The reader is available at Abel’s: 715 W 23^rd Street, tel.: 472-5353. Books and the reader are on the PCL reserves.

 

1. Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton. American Apartheid (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

U.P., 1993).

2. Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! (Boston: Beacon, 1997).

3. The South End Press Collective, What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of

the Nation (Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007)

4. Max Rameau, Take Back the Land (Miami: Nia Interactive Press, 2008)

5. Reader

 

 

Course dynamics

I encourage you to develop the habit of studying, debating, and writing reading reports and short papers with at least one or two colleagues.

 

It is crucial that readings be completed prior to the date when they are scheduled. Besides completing the reading, you will be responsible for the following:

 

A) 2-page typed reports, one every two weeks, covering the previous two week’s readings. These reports will be turned in at the beginning of each third week, unless otherwise noticed.  

 

• These reports will be brief critical summaries of what you consider to be the main points in the texts assigned.
• Rather than restating what the texts present, you should (a) draw parallels and contrasts between the texts assigned for each week, and (b) engage with the authors in such way that you are constantly asking critical questions.
  • Why does the author make such claims? What is the evidence s/he presents? How does s/he interpret her/his data? Do you agree with the argument? Why?
• You should attempt to connect the reading to current events and lectures;
• The reports should include at least one question and/or insights you consider important to discuss in class.

 

Late reports will not be accepted. At the end of the semester you will have turned in 7 two- page reports. For your final grade, I’ll only consider your 6 highest graded reports.

 

Since there will be a report every two weeks, consistency is key in securing a good final grade.

 

B) Participation in class discussions. You will be expected to participate in class discussions in two ways.

• The first will be through your critical interventions during lectures, and presentations by other students.
• The second will be in the group setting. Each participant will be assigned a group, which will present twice on the semester-long ethnographic project: once the design, and once on the result of their research. It is important that the research, writing, and presentation work be divided as equally as possible among members of each group.
  • I encourage you to find ways to render your presentation as interesting and captivating as possible. You can use multimedia (film, photograph, music) and other means to make your arguments and engage your colleagues.

 

C) A final, 10-15-page ethnographic report. This paper, written collectively by each group, will be a critical analysis of the ways in which individuals and communities occupy, make sense of, challenge, and maintain spatial configurations in the city. How are race and urban space marked by each other? You must start collecting material about an area of Austin at the beginning of the semester. The area can be a community organization, a public space (swimming pool, library, park), et cetera. Examples of research material that you can collect are: ethnographic notes, photographs, newspaper, journal, and magazine articles, interviews, and so on. More information on this will be provided during the semester.

 

Participation

The participation grade will depend on your consistent and active engagement in class discussion by way of critical, insightful commentaries based on our readings. For those who are not used to talking in class, group presentations will be good opportunities to speak while supported by the colleagues with whom you prepared your interventions.

 

Your participation grade will also depend on your attendance. It is impossible to obtain a good participation grade with a poor attendance.

 

A note on attendance

Each time you have 4 unjustified absences, your final grade will be diminished by a letter grade. The rule is cumulative, so that your grade will be dropped another letter grade with the 8^th, 12^th, and 16^th absence.

 

Grading

Your final grade will be calculated as follows:

 

Reading reports: 40%

Final paper: 30%

Participation: 30%

 

Notice

Students with disabilities may request appropriate academic accommodations from the Division of Diversity and Community Engagement, Services for Students with Disabilities, telephone 471-6259.

 

 

Course structure

 

Part I (Weeks 1-3)

• Historical background: genesis of race thinking
• Colonialism and violence
• The Black Radical Tradition
• Strategic essentialism versus strategic universalism
• Black feminist theory

 

Part II (Weeks 4-6)

• Race and urban space: facets of U.S. segregation
• Anglos and Mexicans in the U.S. Southwest
• The politics of black representations
• Oppression and resistance: social movements and racial solidarity

 

Part III (Weeks 7-8)

• Black Power
• Women and the Civil Rights Movement
• The Black Panther Party
• Government repression against organized radical movements

 

Part IV (Weeks 9-12)

• Urban rebellions in the mid-1960s
• Black Wealth/White wealth
• Youth resistance
• The limits and consequences of contemporary conservative ideologies

 

 

Part V (Weeks 13-15)

• The effects of Hurricane Katrina and new social movements
• Black diaspora utopias: multiracial/multiethnic transnational alliances
• Taking back the land: a case study

 

 

Meeting and reading schedule

 

Readings marked with an asterisk * are in the course reader

 

Week 1

August 27 Introduction

 

 

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina University Press, [1983] 2000), pp. 121-155.*

 

 

Week 2

            September 1 Tuesday

September 3 Thursday

 

Cedric Robinson, Black Marxism: The making of the Black Radical Tradition (Chapel

Hill: University of North Carolina University Press, [1983] 2000), pp. 155-171.*

Paul Gilroy, Against Race: Imagining political culture beyond the Color Line

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2000), pp. 11-53.*

Patricia Hill Collins, “The Social Construction of Black Feminist Thought.” In Kum-

Kum Bhavnani, editor, Feminism & ‘Race’ (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001), pp. 184-202.*

 

 

 

 

 

 

Week 3

September 8 Tuesday: Report 1

September 10 Thursday

 

bell hooks, Feminism is for everybody: Passionate politics (Cambridge, MA: South End

Press, 2000), pp.vii-x; 1-47.*

Dorothy Roberts, Killing the Black Body: Race, Reproduction, and the Meaning of

Liberty (New York: Vintage Books, 1997), pp. 22-55.*

Angela Davis, Blues Legacy and Black Feminism (New York: Vintage, 1998), pp. 3-41.*

Luke Charles Harris, “The Challenge and Possibility for Black Males to Embrace

Feminism.” In Devon Carbado, editor, Black Men on Race, Gender, and Sexuality (New York: New York University Press, 1999), pp. 383-386.*

 

 

Week 4

September 15 Tuesday

September 17 Thursday

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1993), pp. 1-59.

Malcolm X and Alex Haley, The Autobiography of Malcolm X (New York: Ballantine

Books, [1964] 1973), pp. 1-58.*

 

 

Week 5

September 22 Tuesday: Report 2

September 24 Thursday

 

Tomás Almaguer, “We Desire Only a White Population in California.” In Racial

Faultlines: The Historical Origins of White Supremacy in California (Berkeley: U of California Press, 1994), pp. 17-41.*

David Montejano, Anglos and Mexicans in the Making of Texas, 1836-1986 (Austin: U of

Texas Press, 1987), pp. 158-178, 220-234.*                                                                                                                                                                                                             

 

 

Week 6

September 29 Tuesday

October 1 Thursday

 

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1993), pp. 60-114.

Robin Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in urban America

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), pp. 1-42.

Week 7

October 6 Tuesday: Report 3

October 8 Thursday: Groups I-V presentations (groups turn in written

  report on research design and progress)

 

 

Robert F. Williams, Negroes with Guns (Detroit: Wayne State University Press, [1962]

1998), pp. vii-xiii; xv-xxxiv; 2-27; 72-86.*

Belinda Robnet, How Long? How Long? African-American Women in the Struggle for

Civil Rights (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997), pp. 53-70.*

Kwame Ture and Charles Hamilton, “Black Power: Its need and substance.” In Martin

Bulmer and John Solmos, editors, Racism (Oxford: Oxford University Press), pp. 236-242.*

Mumia Abu-Jamal, “A Life in the Party: An Historical and Retrospective Examination of

the Projections and Legacies of the Black Panther Party.” In Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, editors, Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 40-50.*

 

 

Week 8

October 13 Tuesday: Groups VI-X presentations (groups turn in written

   report on research design and progress)

October 15 Thursday

 

Akinyele Omowale Umoja, “Repression Breeds Resistance: The Black Liberation Army

and the Radical Legacy of the Black Panther Party.” In Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, editors, Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 3-19.*

Assata Shakur, Assata (Chicago: Lawrence Hill Books, 1987), pp. vi-xiv; 195-207; 216-

233.*

Ward Churchill, “To Disrupt, Discredit and Destroy”: The FBI’s secret War Against the

Black Panther Party.” In Kathleen Cleaver and George Katsiaficas, editors, Liberation, Imagination, and the Black Panther Party (New York: Routledge, 2001), pp. 78-117.*

 

 

Week 9

October 20 Tuesday: Report 4

October 22 Thursday

 

Thomas Sugrue, The Origins of the Urban Crisis: Race and Inequality in Postwar

Detroit (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1996), pp. 230-271.*

Suzanne E. Smith, Dancing in the Street: Motown and the Cultural Politics of Detroit

(Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1999), pp. 209-246.*

 

 

 

Week 10

October 27 Tuesday

October 29 Thursday

 

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1993), pp.115-147.

Melvin L. Oliver and Thomas M. Shapiro, Black Wealth/White Wealth (London:

Routledge, 1997), pp. 127-170.*

 

 

Week 11

November 3 Tuesday: Report 5

November 5 Thursday

 

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1993), pp.148-185.

Robin Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in urban America

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), pp. 43-77.

 

 

Week 12

November 10 Tuesday

November 12 Thursday

 

Jacqueline Jones, “Back to the Future with The Bell Curve: Jim Crow, Slavery, and G.”

In Steven Fraser, editor, The Bell Curve Wars: Race, Intelligence, and the Future of America (New York: Basic Books, 1995), pp. 80-93.*

Robin Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in urban America

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), pp. 78-124.

Kenneth J. Neubeck and Noel A. Cazenave, Welfare Racism: Playing the Race Card

Against America’s Poor (London: Routledge, 2001), pp. 147-176.*

 

 

Week 13

November 17 Tuesday: Report 6

November 19 Thursday: Groups I-V presentations (groups turn in final

       research report)

 

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton, American Apartheid (Cambridge, MA: Harvard

University Press, 1993), pp. 186-236.

South End Collective, What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation

(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007): vii-53.                                               

Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider (Trumansburg, NY: Crossing Press, 1984), pp. 110-113,

145-175.*

                                               

 

Week 14

November 24 Tuesday

November 26 Thursday – Thanksgiving Day

 

Robin Kelley, Yo’ Mama’s Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in urban America

(Boston: Beacon Press, 1997), pp. 125-158.

South End Collective, What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation

(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007): 54-119

Max Rameau, Take Back the Land: Land, Gentrification and the Umoja Village

Shantytown (Miami: Nia Press, 2008): 7-76.

 

 

 

Week 15

December 1 Tuesday: Report 7; Groups VI-X presentations (groups turn

               in final research report)

December 3 Thursday

 

South End Collective, What Lies Beneath: Katrina, Race, and the State of the Nation

(Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2007): 99-169.

Max Rameau, Take Back the Land: Land, Gentrification and the Umoja Village

Shantytown (Miami: Nia Press, 2008): 77-133.

 

Travel to Brazil req.