Presentations and Cyber-Post Responses

Today the presentations were generally great with props to Tatiana, Erica, Itzel for their preparation. Dexter's presentation was also good, as was Forrest's on American culture.

Students who presented write a self-reflection on the process from essay to presentation (250 words) minimum.

What separated the excellent work from satisfactory was the three women students' attention to the assignment specifications: bring in visuals, music, lyrics and become an expert on your topic. misogyny was the thesis in many of the presentations, along with women's tacit participation in their objectification and exploitation for a variety of reasons. We looked at the intersection between objectification and pornography. We also looked at how American norms around a women's sexuality and her ability to celebrate her sexuality was not some present in all cultures, but with cyber communication and globalization this window is closing and the mores merging in both negative and positive ways.

A friend of mine, Rhodessa Jones, Artistic Director, Medea Project, Theatre for Incarcerated Women, said when she was in South Africa, the kids called her a "bitch and a ho," not out of disrespect, but because they learned to speak English from hip hop videos and they though woman equals ho and bitch, that this is what the words mean. She straightened them out (smile).

I appreciated and enjoyed Erica's call to action. She along with Itzel and Tatiana and Dexter left their audience with a choice, while admitting that success and fame sometimes means going along with a program one did not produce or audition for.

The women surveyed were one's most students knew and I can certainly say that many of you are experts, but as budding scholars, you do not have a published body of work yet, so you have to look to other published work of scholars who support your arguments.

Keep this in mind. Hip Hop didn't jump out of a vacuum, it is an art which is a part of American culture, specifically rooted in African Diaspora culture so dig deeply to find historic evidence to support your claims.

If you are talking about money and American culture and this materialism evident in popular culture, or body adornment and how it is showing up in the younger generations...look at trends and periods in American history like the the radical '60s which was a look that had several soundtracks.

I read the essays and many do not use scholarly sources from a library database, not one, also the MLA is not correct on many papers and others are too short. I will return them to you with comments and Dexter I will email yours back to you with comments. If you want comments sooner than Tuesday, October 6, Erica, Itzel and Tatiana, send me your work.

Students escaped without handouts I'd had for you. Darn it! I will give you the articles on Tuesday. I'd like you to read the other essays I listed from Total Chaos in the assignment post (I also gave students handouts) for this coming week which includes today. I will post links for responses.

We are scholars so even if the language in the work we are studying is full of cliches and profanity and other non-standard language, when we critique the work--one paper and in oral discussion, we use Standard English.

Please post your comments here. Be constructive and use examples from the presentations.