Atelier@Duke: Media & Politics; Culture & Identity

Atelier@Duke: Media & Politics; Culture & Identity
February 25, 2011

Panelists at the Atelier@Duke symposium discuss "Media and Politics, Culture and Identity," the final panel at the Atelier@Duke, an event marking the 15th anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University Libraries.

Panelists include Nia-Malika Henderson (The Washington Post), Susannah Meadows (Newsweek), Linda Williams (Raleigh News & Observer), Orin Starn (Duke), and moderator Mark Anthony Neal (Duke).

Atelier@Duke: Intellectuals and Activism

Atelier@Duke: Intellectuals and Activism
February 25, 2011

Panelists at the Atelier@Duke symposium discuss "Intellectuals and Activism," the third of five panels at the Atelier@Duke, an event marking the 15th anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University Libraries.

Panelists include Joanne Braxton (William & Mary), Paula Giddings (Smith College), Evelyn Brooks Higginbotham (Harvard), Tim Tyson (Duke), and moderator William H. Chafe (Duke).

Atelier@Duke: Private Bodies

Atelier@Duke: Private Bodies
February 25, 2011

Panelists at the Atelier@Duke symposium discuss "Private Bodies," the fourth of five panels at the Atelier@Duke, an event marking the 15th anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University Libraries.

Panelists include Harriet Washington (Author, Medical Apartheid), Charmaine Royal (Duke), Alondra Nelson (Columbia), Anne Lyerly (UNC-CH), and moderator Karla Holloway (Duke).

Atelier@Duke: Representing Global Blackness

February 25, 2011: Panelists at the Atelier@Duke symposium discuss "Representing Global Blackness," the second of five panels at the Atelier@Duke, an event marking the 15th anniversary of the John Hope Franklin Research Center at Duke University Libraries.

Panelists include Ian Baucom (Duke), Farah Jasmine Griffin (Columbia), Charles Piot (Duke), Deborah A. Thomas (Penn), and moderator Lee Baker (Duke).

Sampling Soul--Duke University Fall 2011

Black Popular Culture—Sampling Soul (AAAS 132)
Mark Anthony Neal and 9th Wonder (Patrick Douthit)
Fall Semester 2011
White Lecture Hall 107
Tuesdays 6:00pm -- 8:25pm

***

Soul Music emerged in the late 1950s and became the secular soundtrack of the Civil Rights and Black Power Movements of the 1960s and 1970s. Artists such as Aretha Franklin and James Brown and record companies such as Motown and Stax, as well as the term Soul became symbols of black aspiration and black political engagement. In the decades since the rise of Soul, the music and its icons are continuously referenced in contemporary popular culture via movie trailers, commercials, television sitcoms and of course music. In the process Soul has become a significant and lucrative cultural archive.

Co-taught with Grammy Award winning producer 9th Wonder and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal, Sampling Soul will examine how the concept of Soul has functioned as raw data for contemporary forms of cultural expression. In addition the course will consider the broader cultural implications of sampling, in the practices of parody and collage, and the legal ramifications of sampling within the context of intellectual property law. The course also offers the opportunity to rethink the concept of archival material in the digital age.

'Left of Black': Episode #23 featuring Shana Tucker

Left of Black #23
w/Shana Tucker
February 28, 2011

Left of Black host Mark Anthony Neal welcomes independent artist and cellist Shana Tucker into the Left of Black studio at the John Hope Franklin Center. Tucker and Neal discuss her new fan-financed CD SHiNE and a style of music that Tucker calls “Chamber Soul.”

Shana Tucker is a “ChamberSoul” cellist and singer/songwriter from New York currently based in North Carolina. Her music is a sultry pastiche of acoustic pop and soulful, jazz-influenced contemporary folk. Tucker’s debut solo project, SHiNE, outlines a musical journey that celebrates the major influences of everyday life: relationship, laughter, love…loss, rediscovery, and the never-ending journey towards heightened levels of peace, understanding and self-acceptance.

***

Left of Black is a weekly Webcast hosted by Mark Anthony Neal and produced in collaboration with the John Hope Franklin Center at Duke University.

Giddings' 'Ida' Wins Library Award

Inaugural Prize Given to Biographer of Ida B. Wells

Libraries Announce Winner of Book Award

A critically acclaimed biography of anti-lynching activist Ida B. Wells has been selected as the winner of the inaugural John Hope Franklin Research Center Book Award, sponsored by Duke University Libraries.

Paula J. Giddings, professor of Afro-American Studies at Smith College, is the author of Ida: A Sword Among Lions (Amistad/HarperCollins, 2008). She will receive a $10,000 cash prize, presented by the John Hope Franklin Research Center for African and African American History and Culture. The Research Center, which marked its fifteenth anniversary this year, is part of Duke’s Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

This is the first time the book award has been offered. It was established “to recognize a recent work of scholarship that best exemplifies the mission of the Research Center and champions the importance of archival research,” said Naomi Nelson, director of the Rare Book, Manuscript, and Special Collections Library.

Ida: A Sword Among Lions tells the story of activist, suffragist, and journalist Ida B. Wells (1862-1931), who was born to slaves in Mississippi and eventually rose to lead an international campaign against lynching, a practice that undermined the very foundations of a country united by law but divided by race.

According to the unanimous decision of the book prize committee, “Paula Giddings’s biography is as striking an achievement as the life it chronicles. This richly documented study will no doubt stand for all time as the definitive, most informed autobiography of Wells. In the tradition of the scholarship of John Hope Franklin, it stands as a tribute to a life of learning, both the author’s and that of the subject of her biography.”

In addition to the biography of Wells, Giddings is the author of two other books on the social and political history of African-American women, When and Where I Enter and In Search of Sisterhood. She is a former journalist who has written for the Washington Post, New York Times, Philadelphia Inquirer, The Nation, and Jeune Afrique (Paris). Before joining the faculty of Smith College in 2001, Giddings taught at Spelman College, Douglass College/Rutgers University, Princeton, and Duke. She is also the senior editor of Meridians: feminism, race, transnationalism, a peer-reviewed feminist, interdisciplinary journal.

For Giddings, the news that she had won the John Hope Franklin Research Center Book Award was both unexpected and particularly pertinent. “In addition to the singular honor of this award, it is also deeply satisfying because it was Dr. Franklin who made possible the publication of Ida Wells’s autobiography, ‘Crusade for Justice,’ the foundational text that made her legacy both visible and compelling to succeeding generations,” said Giddings.

The award will be presented to Giddings on Feb. 25 at a dinner that also marks the inaugural Atelier@Duke, a series of panel discussions focusing on the theme “The Idea of Archive: Producing and Performing Race,” in honor of the John Hope Franklin Research Center’s fifteenth anniversary. The panel discussions, which are free and open to the public, will take place Feb. 25-26 in Perkins Library’s Gothic Reading Room. For more information, or to register to attend the panel discussions, visit the Atelier website.

***

Contact / For more information

• Aaron Welborn
• aaron.welborn@duke.edu
• 919-660-5816

THe Legacy of Pauli Murray

Babara Lau, director of the Pauli Murry Project discusses the legacy of activist Pauli Murray.

Maurice Wallace Presents "King's Vibrato"

Maurice Wallace
Associate Professor of English and African American Studies, Duke University

presents

"King's Vibrato"

in conversation with

Louise Meintjes
Associate Professor of Music, Duke University

Duke University
January 13, 2011 5-7pm
Friedl 225

'Left of Black': Episode #11 featuring Curator Trevor Schoonmaker

Left of Black # 11--November 29, 2010
w/Mark Anthony Neal

Host and Duke University Professor Mark Anthony Neal is on location at the Nasher Museum of Art in Durham, NC with curator Trevor Schoonmaker, who curated The Record: Contemporary Art and Vinyl, which runs at the Nasher Museum until February.

Schoonmaker's previous exhibitions at the Nasher Museum include Barkley L. Hendricks: Birth of the Cool (2008-10) and Street Level: Mark Bradford, William Cordova and Robin Rhode (2007-08). Prior to joining the Nasher Museum his exhibitions included The Beautiful Game: Contemporary Art and Fútbol (2006), DTroit (2003-04), and Black President: The Art and Legacy of Fela Anikulapo-Kuti (2003-05). He edited the book Fela: From West Africa to West Broadway.

Booksigning: Professors Lee Baker and Charlie Piot

Please join African and African American Studies and Cultural Anthropology for an author reading, book signing, and reception

Wednesday, November 3, 2010
4:30-6:30PM
225 Friedl Building
Duke University

featuring

Professor Lee Baker
Anthropology and the Racial Politics of Culture

and

Associate Professor Charles Piot
Nostalgia for the Future: West Africa After the Cold War

Art Opening: ARTiculating Caribbean Imaginaries: Four Caribbean Artists

ARTiculating Caribbean Imaginaries:
Four Caribbean Artists

Christopher Cozier
Mario Marzan
Fausto Ortiz
Gelsy Verna

Curated by Michaeline Crichlow

October 21 – December 3, 2010
Franklin Humanities Institute Gallery
C104, Bay 4, Smith Warehouse
Duke University

Opening Reception: Thursday October 21, 4:30 PM

Dialogue With Exhibition Artist Fausto Ortiz: Friday October 22, 3:30 PM

Curator Statement:

The Caribbean artists here articulate a visual poetics about their places in the world, and the world in their spaces. They engage in a visual reading of their experiences of place from various locations, within the region and without. The work of artists, Gelsy Verna, Haitian-Canadian, who 2 years ago, left us prematurely, Trinidadian, Christopher Cozier, Puerto Rican, Mario Marzan and Fausto Ortiz of La Republica Dominicana engage particular tropes common to the region’s socio-cultural practices, its imaginations and its dire ecological and geo-political contexts . These heterogeneous expressions share a common sensibility which is expressed, or so it seems, as a prominent statement about liminal movements- a dwelling in movement- and shape-shifting identities that disclose agonistic existences with things as they are, or have become in an era of entanglement and vulnerability. Caribbean homes are vulnerable spaces. Homes may offer comfort, but in the face of the region’s terrors- hurricanes, earthquakes, natural or sociopolitical disasters, (sometimes occurring simultaneously) and domestic violences-they offer no such guarantees of place. If the Caribbean is a ‘location of unending journeys,’ as Cozier suggests, then these articulations map the routes of the region’s paradoxical imaginaries. They provide a way to locate something that seems always elusive and incoherent. Like creolization itself these imaginaries lend expression to a Caribbeanness in motion, in tension and often in violent articulations.

Curator Michaeline Crichlow is Associate Professor of Sociology and African and African American Studies at Duke University.

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This is the first show in a year-long exhibition series at the FHI focusing on contemporary African American, Caribbean, and Diaspora Arts. Please visit our website for a complete schedule.

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* Image: Gelsy Verna, Mississippi Goddamn, c. 1996, Mixed Media on Paper

Syllabus: Black Satire

Black Satire
Duke University
AAAS 199S
Fall 2010
Monday/Wednesday 11:40-12:55 am
Languages 08

Mark Anthony Neal, Ph.D.
Ernestine Friedl Building, room 243F


TEXTS

Tuff—Paul Beatty
Angry Black White Boy or The Miscegenation of Macon Detornay—Adam Mansbach
Erasure—Percival Everett
Oreo—Fran Ross
Laughing Mad: The Black Comic Persona in Post-Soul America—Bambi Haggins
Laughing Fit to Kill: Black Humor in the Fictions of Slavery—Glenda Carpio
Black No More—George Schuyler
The Boondocks: All the Rage—Aaron McGruder


COURSE DESCRIPTION

This course will examine contemporary and historical expressions of Black Satire in Popular Literature and Culture. Given the social and political constraints that Black Americans were confronted with satire became a fertile arena for artists, writers, musicians and intellectuals to offer commentary about mainstream society as well as the inner-workings of Black life. Using examples from the late 19th century until our contemporary moment, the course will examine how various figures used satire to challenge the status quo and to offer more complex views of Black identity and culture. The course will use the work of earlier generations of satirists such as George Schuyler and Ollie Harrington, as well as contemporary examples such as novelists Percival Everett, Paul Beatty, and the late Fran Ross, cartoonist Aaron McGruder, comedians Dave Chappelle, Wanda Sykes, Chris Rock and others.

President Obama Welcomes the Duke Blue Devils

The President honors the 2010 NCAA Men's Basketball champion Duke Blue Devils in a ceremony in the Rose Garden. May 27, 2010.

Ken Lewis: A Different Kind of Senator

special to NewBlackMan

Op-ed

A Different Kind of Senator
By Carol Moseley Braun

I don’t usually get involved in Democratic primary contests, but this race was too important to stay on the sidelines. In North Carolina we have three candidates vying for the Democratic nomination, but one stands out above the rest. That candidate is Ken Lewis.

I have been impressed with Ken’s ability to connect with young voters, progressives, and African Americans, the same groups that drove Barack Obama to victory in North Carolina in 2008. In an off-year election where Democratic voters are not showing high levels of engagement, Ken is the best candidate to inspire and turn out the coalition of voters that will be necessary to defeat Senator Burr in November.

But this primary election is about more than political calculation.

Ken Lewis represents a significant opportunity for the State of North Carolina and our country: The opportunity to change the U.S. Senate by changing the kind of Senators we send there.

Ken Lewis’ background is not like that of most U.S. Senators. He worked as a janitor, bus driver and fast food employee to put himself through Duke University and then Harvard Law School.

In this down economy he would bring a unique set of skills to the Senate, having spent two decades helping businesses create jobs in nearly every industry in North Carolina.

At a time when Americans feel forgotten by political insiders, Ken would bring a unique set of experiences, deeply rooted in the community organizations and non-profit associations he has served.

As Senator, Ken will be responsive to the needs of North Carolinians. He’ll serve the people of North Carolina because that’s what he’s done all his life.

But there is another factor as well that many are quick to dismiss.

When I first ran for the U.S. Senate in 1991, the Senate did not include any African-Americans. The South has not elected an African-American to the U.S. Senate since 1874. Today, there is only one sitting African-American Senator, and he will not return to the Senate next year.

How can we reach our full promise as Americans with a Senate that only reflects a narrow slice of our country—a Senate that does not include one single African-American Senator?

If we are serious about making the Senate a deliberative body that makes well-informed policy for the 21st century, then we must strive to include in the U.S. Senate a range of experiences and backgrounds that encompass those found in our country. No one could look at the U.S. Senate today and believe these requirements to be satisfied.

Ken Lewis will bring a unique background, a vital set of skills, and a fresh and optimistic perspective to the U.S. Senate. He also offers an historic opportunity to make our U.S. Senate a more representative, well-informed, and inclusive place.

Now is not the time to sit on the sidelines. We have a chance to make history in North Carolina just as I made history in Illinois two decades ago. This is our time. Ken is our candidate. He’ll be our Senator, if we all do our part.

Please show your support by making a contribution to Ken’s campaign today.

Carol Moseley Braun is the first and only African-American woman ever elected to the U.S. Senate. She served as U.S. ambassador to New Zealand from 1999-2001.

"Can We Talk?" Bridges Between the Humanities and the Social Sciences

Duke Conference Aims to Integrate Social Sciences and Humanities

Two-day conference to be held March 25-26

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

DURHAM, N.C. -- A two-day conference at Duke University will address what some say is a quarrelsome relationship between two fields of research – the humanities and social sciences.

“Can We Talk?: Bridges Between the Humanities and the Social Sciences” will be held Thursday and Friday, March 25 and 26, in the Friedl Building on Duke’s East Campus. The event is free and open to the public. Registration is required.

The conference aims to bring scholars from the two worlds together in a conversation about how they can mutually benefit each other. Organizers believe collaboration between researchers in these fields can improve our knowledge of race, inequality and social difference.

“We’re hoping the conference will give attendees a foundation about how we might alter the curricula to a more integrated approach for the humanist and the social scientist,” said conference organizer William Darity, a professor of public policy and director of Duke’s Research Network on Race and Ethnic Inequality, a co-sponsor of the event.

Chairs from three African American studies departments -- J. Lorand Matory of Duke, Julius Nyang’Oro of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and Greg Carr of Howard University -- will participate in the discussion.

On Thursday evening excerpts from films meant to stimulate discussion about racial inequality, such as “Precious” and “Akeelah and the Bee” will be shown. “The Doll,” a film by Duke artist-in-residence Dante James and based on a novel by Charles Chestnutt, will be shown in its entirety. Duke professor Mark Anthony Neal and UNC-Chapel Hill professor Charlene Regester will lead Thursday’s film discussion.

The following evening professors Wahneema Lubiano of Duke and John Renfrio of the College of William and Mary will lead a discussion of the CNN series “Black in America” and “Latinos in America.”

The conference is co-sponsored by several Duke units, including the John Hope Franklin Center for African and African American Research; the Franklin Humanities Institute; the departments of African and African American Studies, cultural anthropology and sociology; and the Mary Lou Williams Center.

Panelists:
Mark Anthony Neal, J. Lorand Matory, Vivian Gadsden, Satya Mohanty, Michael Hardt, Wahneema Lubiano, Nikhil Singh, Eduardo Bonilla-Silva...

Thursday, March 25th
• Welcome and Introduction, 9:00 a.m.
• Social Theory and Literature, 9:30 a.m.
• Educational Policy, 10:30 a.m.
• Lunch and Student Presentations
• Growth and Globalization, 1:00 p.m.
• Race and Identity, 2:00 p.m.
• Dinner
• Film Screening, 7:45 p.m.
• Panel Discussion on Film

Friday, March 26th
• Introduction, 9:00 a.m.
• Statistics, Statistics, and more Statistics, 9:15 a.m.
• Going Above, Below and Beyond Surveys, 10:30 a.m.
• Lunch
• CNN Black in America, Latino in America, 12:25 p.m.
• Spanning the Diaspora, 1:00 p.m.
• Department Heads Panel, 2:30 p.m.

For more information and to register, go to http://thenetwork.ssri.duke.edu/newsevents.php.

© 2010 Office of News & Communications

Reimagining Latino Hip-Hop in the 21st Century

Dislocated Performances:
Reimagining Latino Hip-Hop in the 21st Century

March 19, 2010

East Campus Union, Upper East Side
Duke University

9:30 am-5:00 pm

Free and open to the public.

How does Hip Hop speak to the day-to-day existence of Latinos in the present age of multiculturalism, globalization, and Obama? How might we read Hip Hop in different ways now, examining how it also dislocates and recalibrates Latinidad? As older and newer generations of U.S. Latinos together redefine the stakes of political action, they elucidate the margins, borders, and crossroads that U.S. Latinos inhabit. These "interstitial spaces" leave room for broader notions of Latino identities, incorporating those “others” who are also always dislocated and "out of place." This one-day workshop will engage the work of activists and prominent scholars in performance and cultural studies, examining the performances of race, gender, sexuality and Latinidad within Hip Hop and the political possibilities of "dislocation."

Featuring:

Rosa Clemente, 2008 Green Party VP Candidate, Hip Hop activist, journalist and radio host (WBAI 99.5 Fm, NYC)

Pancho McFarland, author of Chicano Rap: gender and violence in the postindustrial barrio (2008)

Jose Munoz, author of Disidentifications (1999) and Cruising Utopia: the Then and There of Queer Futurity (2009)

Mark Anthony Neal, co-editor of That’s the joint! The Hip Hop Studies Reader (2004) and author of New Black Man (2005)

Raquel Z. Rivera, author of New York Ricans from the Hip Hop Zone (2003) and co-editor of Reggaeton (2009)

Alexandra T. Vazquez, author of the forthcoming Instrumental Migrations: The Critical Turns of Cuban Music, and co-editor of a forthcoming anthology on La Lupe (Duke University Press).


Program:

9:30 am Continental breakfast

10:15-12:00 pm

Panel I: Over Turn-ing Tables:
Sex, Gender,and Trespassing in Latino Hip-Hop

* Pancho McFarland: “Quien es Mas Macho? Quien es Mas Mexicano?:Chicano Identities in Rap”
* Jose Munoz: “Browness, Aesthetics and Contagion”
* Alexandra T. Vazquez: “We Don’t Live for Latino Studies, (Latino Studies) It Lives For Us”

12:00-1:15 pm Music and Lunch

1:15-3:00 pm

Panel II: Los suenos de los fantasmas que marchan:
The Liberation Dreams of an Un-seen Army

* Rosa Clemente: “when a black puerto rican woman ran for vice president and nobody knew her name"
* Mark Anthony Neal: “History of Hip-Hop Before Hip-Hop”
* Raquel Z. Rivera: “Liberation Mythologies: Art, Spirit and Justice”


3:00 pm-5:00 pm Music and Reception featuring DJ Miraculous

Location: Duke University, East Campus Union, Upper East Side. (See map: http://maps.oit.duke.edu/building/136. Building is labeled in Red as “Marketplace.”)

Parking reserved on East Campus quad for conference attendees. Turn onto Campus Drive from Main Street and follow traffic to move straight forward, past the bus stop, to the long, oval grassy area in between buildings. Look for signs and a parking attendant.

Presented by the Program in Latino/a Studies in the Global South, Duke University

'Sampling Soul' Goes Live!

Class to focus on rapper Nas' critically acclaimed rap album 'Illmatic'

'Sampling Soul' Class Open To The Public Via Live Webcast March 16

DURHAM, N.C. -- The public will get a chance to experience the popular Duke University course “Sampling Soul” via a live webcast beginning at 6 p.m. Tuesday, March 16, at ustream.tv/dukeuniversity.

The topic of the class will be the making of the critically acclaimed hip-hop album “Illmatic” by rapper Nasir Jones, aka Nas.

The undergraduate course is co-taught by African and African American Studies professor Mark Anthony Neal and Grammy Award-winning music producer 9th Wonder. Each weekly class emphasizes a different aspect of sampling music, from its history to legal considerations. The “Sampling Illmatic” class will focus on the making of Nas’ 1994 album.

Viewers are encouraged to submit questions for the professors either in advance or during the session by sending an e-mail to live@duke.edu, posting a comment on the Duke University Live Ustream page on Facebook, or tweeting with the tag #dukelive. A recording of the event will be available on Duke on Demand.

“Well before the release of ‘Illmatic,’ Nas was already drawing comparisons to Rakim Allah, often regarded as hip-hop's greatest lyricist,” says Neal. “The album’s release did not disappoint. It began what has been one of the most stellar careers in hip-hop, where Nas has found the perfect balance between maintaining relevancy on the streets while offering trenchant commentary about politics, relationships and everyday black life.”

“Illmatic,” with its lyrics from the perspective of a teenager living in the projects, contains several popular singles, including “The World Is Yours,” “It Ain't Hard to Tell” and “One Love.”

Neal says “Illmatic” also struck a chord because it became the blueprint for sample-based hip-hop production throughout the 1990s, with “contributions from a who's who of producers including DJ Premiere, Pete Rock, Large Professor and Q-Tip.”

Neal contributed an essay on jazz, hip-hop and fathers to the newly released book Born To Use Mics: Reading Nas’s Illmatic (Basic Civitas, 2010). Nas’ father is jazz and blues musician Olu Dara. The volume was edited by Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai and is one of several texts used in the class.

Mark Anthony Neal is the author of four books, including “New Black Man: Rethinking Black Masculinity” and the forthcoming “Looking for Leroy.” His essays have been anthologized in a dozen books.

9th Wonder, born Patrick Douthit, is a former member of the hip-hop trio Little Brother, which released albums such as “The Listening” and “The Minstrel Show.” He has produced music for Jay-Z, Destiny’s Child, Mary J. Blige and Erykah Badu among others. He also scored the music for “The Boondocks” animated television series. He was recently selected as the NAACP’s national ambassador for hip-hop relations and culture.

© 2010 Office of News & Communications

615 Chapel Drive, Box 90563, Durham, NC 27708-0563

(919) 684-2823; After-hours phone (for reporters on deadline): (919) 812-6603

Professor Turns to HBO's 'The Wire' for Course

Professor turns to HBO's 'The Wire' for Class

by Michael Woodsmall

Anne-Maria Makhulu was never much of a couch potato and had never seen The Wire. But when at a conference a few years ago she overheard mentor Judith Halberstam, an English professor at the University of Southern California, having an animated conversation about the show, she decided that it must be worthy of a viewing. She took it with her as her only company while finishing a book manuscript in New York City. And it was then that she thought she had to teach a course on this.

When she returned to Durham, she expressed her interest in teaching the course at a faculty meeting and was greeted with an enthusiastially positive reaction. That response was validated by the course’s high enrollment in its first semester of being offered.

“For me, as an anthropologist, The Wire is incredibly socially robust. It reveals a world with all of its [connections],” Makhulu says, channeling Halberstam’s enthusiasm.

In a recent interview on Up Front with Tony Cox, Makhulu and Jason Mittell, a professor of American studies and media culture at Middlebury College, discussed the television program’s use in classrooms. Mittell emphasized how it brings together seemingly disparate worlds.

The extraordinary social imagination of head writers David Simon and Ed Burns portrays oft-ignored issues in an accessible way, encouraging conversations that were only whispers before.

“Most of us are teaching this as a ploy,” admits Makhulu. “Not to be deceitful, but to appeal to students to think about very difficult issues.”

The course is in the catalogs at the University of California—Berkeley, Middlebury and Harvard, though each iteration has a different curriculum. At Berkeley, renowned feminist scholar and author of Hardcore, Linda Williams teaches it from a more literary perspective, asking the question, what is so great about The Wire?

Read the Full Article @ The Chronicle

9th Wonder Trades in Studio to Sample Soul at Duke

9th Wonder Trades in Studio to Sample Soul at Duke
By Ross Green
March 4, 2010

There’s a rather distinguished group on hand at the Nasher for Professor Mark Anthony Neal’s African and African-American Studies 132 lecture.

On one side of the lecture hall stage, Neal discusses the legacy of Motown music with special guest Harry Weinger, Vice President of Artist and Repertoire at Universal Music Enterprises. Pierce Freelon, son of legendary jazz vocalist Nnenna Freelon and emcee of the North Carolina jazz-hip hop fusion outfit the Beast, occasionally peppers the two with questions from his seat in the audience. And 9th Wonder, the biggest name in the room, slouches in a chair opposite Neal and Weinger in front of a laptop. He provides the playlist for the evening’s event, alternating between classic Motown tracks and the hip-hop songs that have sampled them.

Nee Patrick Douthit of Winston-Salem, N.C., 9th Wonder has been a mainstay of the Triangle hip-hop scene since the early part of the decade, when his original group Little Brother released debut album The Listening in 2003. But since leaving the group in 2007, 9th has diversified his focus. He’s in the midst of producing Death of a Pop Star, a collaborative album with Mississippi rapper David Banner, and will release Fornever, his fourth album with indie hip-hop artist MURS March 30. The album’s first single “The Problem Is…” features unusually aggressive rhymes from MURS atop sparse, minimalist drums and gospel-tinged backing vocals.

“Fornever is [MURS and I’s] best record,” 9th says. “A lot of people say our best record was MURS 3:16, some people think it was MURS’ Revenge…but we did it again on this one.”

This is high praise, given the considerable critical acclaim afforded each of their first three collaborations, but 9th is setting his sights even higher. In 2009, he created two independent record labels, Jamla and The Academy, and has recruited a stable of North Carolina emcees for both. He’s also the lead composer for videogame giant EA Sports title NBA Live ’11, due in October.

“The [EA Sports] team is talking about making me an unlockable character,” 9th says with a grin.

His recent exploits have extended to academics as well, having taught classes at North Carolina Central University for the past three years. In addition to teaching a hip-hop history class pro bono at Barber-Scotia College in Concord, N.C. this semester, he is the co-professor, along with Neal, of African and African-American Studies 132 at Duke, entitled Sampling Soul. The project, he says, has been gestating for some time.

Read the Full Article @ The Chronicle