AFST 20275 - Some Other Mess: The Role of Black Outsiders in the African Diaspora

Institution:

University of Notre Dame

Subject:

Africana Studies

Description:

They go by many names: bohos, artists, radicals, intellectuals, TRAs, mixies, and punks. They are members of the African Diaspora who defy the stereotypical construction of Black people that the media and a history of marginalization by the "mainstream" culture have created. People who look like them and with whom they share the same politicized racial identity often ostracize them. Are these individuals dangerous outsiders, who by eschewing the communal traditions that led to the securing of civil rights for a united African American population are imperiling Black identity with a quest for individual freedom? Or, are they renegades whose explorations outside of accepted constructions of Black identity challenge entrenched ideas of race, class, sexuality and gender, not only for African Americans, but for everyone living in a postmodern multicultural world? Are they part of a long and illustrious history of identity exploration by African Americans who helped to shape and change American culture? These are some of the questions we will explore in this course. It is an investigation into the lives, work, and legacies of members of the African Diaspora who are clearly into "some other mess" that is, those who insist on doing their own thing in world that still takes issue with individual freedom of expression for some marginalized peoples. The assertion of the right to individual expression raises questions that are at the heart of the American ideal of integration and the African American construct of community. By critically engaging the works of artists like Jean-Michel Basquiat, writings by generations of cultural critics, the stories of adoptees and multiracial African Americans, the music of progressive musicians, scholarship by Black feminists of both genders, and the media representations of African Americans in the Postwar United States, we will begin to understand the role of people of African descent in America as outsiders, both communally and individually.

Credits:

3.00

Credit Hours:

Prerequisites:

Corequisites:

Exclusions:

Level:

Instructional Type:

Lecture

Notes:

Additional Information:

Historical Version(s):

Institution Website:

www.nd.edu

Phone Number:

(574) 631-5000

Regional Accreditation:

North Central Association of Colleges and Schools

Calendar System:

Semester

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