Women,Gender,Sexuality Studies 393P - S-Pop Culture and Racial Icons

This course will be an exploration, analysis, and discussion of what meaning do we attach to the images of racial political, social, and cultural figures. We will focus on how black womanhood has been historically and continues to be reconstructed through representations, images, as well as on our imagination. Nicole Fleetwood examines the currency of these images and asks, how do racial icons "signify." We will read Tony Morrison's Playing in the Dark; Nicole Fleetwood's, On Racial Icons, Blackness and the Public Imagination; thoroughly analyze Beyonce's Lemonade; discuss other icons in sports, politics, pop culture, and social media (inter alia, the Venus Sisters, Laverne Cox, Janet Mock), and look closely at the Hottentot Venus and black female desire. Students will have the opportunity to tailor their assignments and projects with lots of flexibility keeping in the mind that this course is about intersectional analysis and must include at least race, gender, and sexuality.