Interrogating the African Diaspora

2006 International Graduate Summer Seminar

Performing African Diasporas

 

Syllabus

 

INTRODUCTORY WEEK, July 5-9:

 

Wednesday – July 5

 

 

Students arrive

Thursday – July 6

 

9:00 AM – 10:30 AM

Supermarket shopping

10:30 AM – 12:30 PM

Orientation and Introductory session

 

Welcoming Statements:

Dr. Raul Moncarz, Vice-Provost, BBC Campus

Dr. Joyce Peterson, Associate Dean of Arts & Sciences

 

12:30 PM – 1:00 PM

Campus Tour and Photo IDs

2:30 PM – 5:00 PM

Theorizing Diaspora: An Overview

Dr. Jean Muteba Rahier, Florida International University

 

Required readings:

Cohen, Robin

1997     Global Diasporas.  Seattle: University of Washington Press.

 

Gilroy, Paul

1994     Diaspora. Paragraph: The Journal of Modern Critical Theory. 17(3):207-212.

 

Safran, William

1991     Diasporas in Modern Societies: Myths of Homeland and Return. Diaspora 1(1):83-99

Friday – July 7

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Diaspora, Globalization, and Black Subjectivities

Dr. Percy Hintzen, University of California, Berkeley

 

Required reading:

Hintzen, Percy

2002    Diaspora, Globalization and the Politics of Identity. Paper presented at the Diasporas Seminar, National Center of Scientific Research, Poitiers, France.


 

2:00 PM – 5:00 PM

Mapping Darktown: Black America as Imagined Community

Dr. Felipe Smith, Tulane University

 

Required reading:

Smith, Felipe

2006    Mapping Darktown: Black America as Imagined Community.

Saturday – July 8

 

7:30 PM

Dinner Party at Dr. Rahier’s House

 

 

MODULE ONE, July 10-14:

“Performance as Method”

E. Patrick Johnson

Northwestern University

 

 

 

Monday – July 10

 

5:00 PM

Opening Reception, WUC 244B, Biscayne Bay Campus

(Light food and refreshments will be served)

6:30 PM

Lecture, Wolfe University Center, Room 155

Reimagining Diaspora: Performance and the

Co-Production of Blackness

Dr. E. Patrick Johnson, Northwestern University

Tuesday, July 11

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Discussion of selected texts by Dr. E. Patrick Johnson

Academic One, Room 226

 

Required readings:

Gilroy, Paul

1994     Sounds Authentic: Black Music, Ethnicity and the Challenge of a Changing Same. In Imagining Home:  Class, Culture and Nationalism in the African Diaspora. Sidney Lemelle & Robin Kelley, eds.  Pp. 93-117. New York: Verso.

 

1995     To Be Real: The Dissident Forms of Black Expressive Culture.  In Let's Get It On: The Politics of Black Performance. Catherine Ugwu, ed. Pp. 12-33. Seattle, WA: Bay Press; Institute of Contemporary Arts.

 

Madison, D. Soyini

1998      Performance, Personal Narratives, and the Politics of Possibility.  In The Future of Performance Studies: Visions and Revisions. Sheron Dailey, ed.  Pp. 276-286. Annandale: National Communication Association.


 

Wednesday, July 12

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Critical presentation of student papers

Academic One, Room 226

 

Student papers to be discussed this week:

Anderson, Judy

University of Florida

Reviving and Reclaiming Black Identities in Argentina through Performance: Afro-Brazilians in Buenos Aires

 

McMillan, Uri

Yale University

Feminist Camp Nao Bustamante, Coco Fosco, and Dirty Harriet Tubman

 

Rapoo, Connie           

University of California, Los Angeles

Just Give Us the Bones: Theatres of Remembering African Diasporic Bodies

 

Codner, Paul

Florida International University

The “Zoralogical” Prototype of African Diaspora Womanism: Signifyin(g) Discourses of Race, Class, Gender, and Elsewhere in Their Eyes Were Watching God.

 

 

The following students will make a critical presentation of papers by one of their colleagues:

-Jung Ran Annachiara will present Judy Anderson’s paper

-Treva Lindsey will present Uri McMillan’s paper

-Marlo David Azikwe will present Connie Rapoo’s paper

-Natasha Himmelman will present Paul Codner’s paper

Thursday, July 13

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Authors’ responses to critical presentation of papers

Academic One, Room 226

 

The authors of the papers presented critically the day before will respond, critically as well, to the July 12 presentation of their papers.


 

5:00 PM

Lecture, Academic Two, Room 115

The Cultural Politics of Jamaican Dancehall Music in South Florida

Dr. Dean Wagstaffe, Indian River Community College

Friday, July 14

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Instructor’s comments on presentations and responses

Academic One – Room 226

 

Dr. Johnson will comment about all aspects of the presentations, responses, and discussions that took place during the week.

Sunday, July 16

 

11:00 AM (Departure from campus)

Group Brunch

Rusty Pelican Restaurant, Key Biscayne

 

 

MODULE TWO, July 17-21:

“Festivities and Celebrations: Aesthetics, Poetics, and Politics”

Carolyn Cooper

University of the West Indies,

Mona Campus, Jamaica

 

 

 

Monday – July 17

 

5:00 PM

Depart Biscayne Bay campus to South Beach for lecture

6:30 PM

Lecture, The Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach

Welcome to Sunsplash: Reggae Tourism and the Politics of Identity in Jamaica

Dr. Carolyn Cooper, University of the West Indies, Mona Campus, Jamaica

Tuesday, July 18

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Discussion of selected texts by Dr. Carolyn Cooper

Academic One, Room 226

 

Required readings:

Bettelheim, Judith

1988     Jonkonnu and Other Christmas Masquerades. In Caribbean Festival Arts. John Nunley and Judith Bettelheim, eds. Pp. 39-83; 200-204. Seattle:  University of Washington Press.

 

Cooper, Carolyn

1995     Me Know No Law, Me Know No Sin: Transgressive Identities and the Voice of Innocence:  The Historical Context. In Noises in the Blood:  Orality, Gender, and the “Vulgar”  Body of Jamaican Popular Culture.  Pp. 19-36.  Durham: Duke University Press.

 

 

Nettleford, Rex

1988     Implications for Caribbean Development In Caribbean Festival Arts. John Nunley and Judith Bettelheim, eds. Pp. 183-197; 210.  Seattle:  University of Washington Press.

 

Thomas, Deborah

2004     Political Economies of Culture. In Modern Blackness:  Nationalism, Globalization, and the Politics of  Culture in Jamaica. Pp. 59-91; 292-297.  Durham: Duke University Press.

Wednesday, July 19

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Critical presentation of student papers

Academic One, Room 226

 

Student papers to be discussed this week:

Himmelman, Natasha 

University of Cape Town

The Language(s) of the Hip-Hop Nation: Interrogating the Subversive Power of Multi-Lingualism

 

Kivenko, Sharon

Harvard University

Dancing Through “Performance-Scapes:” Transnationalism and West African Dance in the African Diaspora

 

Lord, Cassandra         

University of Toronto

Mapping Diaspora in Queer Celebrations:  Imagining Home, Nation and Belonging in Pride Parades and Pelau Masqueerade

 

Smith, Katherine        

University of California, Los Angeles

Condoms and Carnival: Finding Meaning in Inappropriate Laughter

 

The following students will make a critical presentation of papers by one of their colleagues:

-Sionne Rameah Neely will present Natasha Himmelman’s paper

-Ondra Thomas-Krouse will present Sharon Kivenko’s paper

-Erica Williams will present Cassandra Lord’s paper

-Maria McMath will present Katherine Smith’s paper

4:00 PM – 6:00 PM

Screening of “Failing Haiti”

Part of the Haitian Summer Institute and the Summer Caribbean Studies program at FIU.

Wolfe University Theater, Biscayne Bay Campus


 

Thursday, July 20

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Authors’ responses to critical presentation of papers

Academic One, Room 226

 

The authors of the papers presented critically the day before will respond, critically as well, to the July 19 presentation of their papers.

5:00 PM

Lecture, Academic Two, Room 115

Ethnic Cross-Dressing and the Fiesta del Gran Poder in La Paz, Bolivia

Dr. David Guss, Tufts University

Friday, July 21

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Instructor’s comments on presentations and responses

Academic One – Room 226

 

Dr. Cooper will comment about all aspects of the presentations, responses, and discussions of the week.

Saturday – July 22

 

9:00 AM – 4:00 PM

Black Tour of Miami

Dr. Marvin Dunn, Florida International University

 

 

MODULE THREE, July 24-28:

“Visualizing Blackness: Corporeality, Collectivity, and Positionalities”

Jean Muteba Rahier

Florida International University

 

 

 

Monday – July 24

 

5:00 PM

Depart Biscayne Bay campus to South Beach for lecture

6:30 PM

Lecture, The Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach

Racist Stereotypes and the Embodiment of Blackness: Some Narratives of Female Sexuality in Quito, Ecuador

Dr. Jean Muteba Rahier, Florida International University

Tuesday, July 25

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Discussion of selected texts by Dr. Jean Muteba Rahier

Academic One, Room 226

 

Required readings:

Hooks, Bell

2002     Representation of Whiteness in Black Imagination.  In White Privilege: Essential Readings on the Other Side of Racism.  Paula S. Rothenburg, ed. Pp. 19-24. New York: Worth Publishers.

 

 

 

Poulson-Bryant, Scott

2005     Hung: A Meditation on the Measure of Black Men in America.  New York: Double Day.

 

Stoler, Ann Laura

2000     Placing Race in the History of Sexuality.  In Race and the Education of Desire: Foucalt’s History of Sexuality  and the Colonial Order of Things.  Ann Laura Stoler, ed.  Pp. 19-54.  Durham, NC: Duke University Press.

 

Young, Lola

1999     Racializing Femininity.  In Women’s Bodies: Discipline and Transgression.  Jane Arthurs and Jean Grimshaw, eds.  Pp. 67-90.

 

Wednesday, July 26

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Critical presentation of student papers

Academic One, Room 226

 

Student papers to be discussed this week:

David Azikwe, Marlo

University of Florida

Magnificently Physical: Big Mama, Performance, and the Reproduction of Black Mothering Bodies.

 

Noel, Samantha          

Duke University

De Jamette in We: Performativity and the Visual Politics of Gender in Contemporary Trinidad Carnival

 

Lindsey, Treva

Duke University

Bartmann, Bananas, Battys, and Badoonka-Doonks: Re-Presenting Black Female Sexuality and Contesting Subjectivity

 

Williams, Erica

Stanford University

Tourism and the Commodification of Black Culture and Black Bodies in Bahia, Brazil

 

 

The following students will make a critical presentation of papers by one of their colleagues:

-Paul Codner will present Marlo David Azikwe’s paper

-Connie Rapoo will present Samantha Noel’s paper

-Sharon Kivenko will present Treva Lindsey’s paper

-Uri McMillan will present Erica Williams’ paper

 

Thursday, July 27

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Authors’ responses to critical presentation of papers

Academic One, Room 226

 

The authors of the papers presented critically the day before will respond, critically as well, to the July 26 presentation of their papers.

5:00 PM

Lecture, Academic Two, Room 115

Hip Hop Honeys or Video Hos?: An Examination of the Links Between Sexual Imagery and Sexual Risk in Hip

Hop Culture

Dr. Dionne Stephens, Florida International University

Friday, July 28

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Instructor’s comments on presentations and responses

Academic One – Room 226

 

Dr. Rahier will comment about all aspects of the presentations, responses, and discussions of the week.

Sunday, July 30

 

TBA

Beach Outing!

Haulover Beach, North Miami Beach

 

 

MODULE FOUR, July 31- August 4:

“Popular Culture: The Marketing of Blackness”

May Joseph

Pratt Institute

 

 

 

Monday – July 31

 

5:00 PM

Depart Biscayne Bay campus to South Beach for lecture

6:30 PM

Lecture, The Wolfsonian-FIU, Miami Beach

Marketing Blackness

May Joseph, Pratt Institute

Tuesday, August 1

 

9:00 AM – 12:30 PM

Discussion of selected texts by Dr. May Joseph

Academic One, Room 226

 

Required readings:

duCille, Ann

1996     Toy Theory: Black Barbie and the Deep Play of Difference. In Skin Trade. Pp. 8-59. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.

 

Dyson, Michael Eric

2006     Come Hell or High Water: Hurricane Katrina and the Color of Disaster. Jackson, TN: Perseus Books Group. (Chapters 1 and 9)

 

 

Wallace, Michelle

1990     Modernism, Postmodernism and the Problem of the Visual in Afro-American Culture. In Out There: Marginalization and Contemporary Cultures. Russell Ferguson, ed. Pp. 364-378. New York: The New Museum of Contempo