Race and Gender Final Paper Assignment

Final Paper Prompt here. We will talk about this during the next class. Good times.

Structuralism 101

"Structuralist Theories" from Selden et al. A Reader's Guide to Contemporary Literary Theory, 3rd Edition (Prentice Hall, 1985)

The Social Construction of Race, Part Deux

This is the bulk of readings for the 'discourses of race' section of the course as we wade through it this week and next. Please have these articles read in the order posted. Pay particular attention to Zook's article on the Fox Network as it invests that political economic perspective that is so well dramatized in Bamboozled as well as the Means-Coleman article on 'black sitcoms' which is a good example of textual analysis.

Kristal Brent Zook, "The Fox Network and the Revolution in Black Television"
Robin R. Means-Coleman, "Black Sitcom Portrayals"
Herman Gray, "The Politics of Representation in Network Television" from Watching Race: Television and the Struggle for Blackness (University of Minnesota Press, 1995/2004)

Donald Bogle, "Workplace Dramas, Ensemble Casts 1990s Style"
Chyng Fen Sun, "Ling Woo in Historical Context: The New Face of Asian American Stereotypes on Television"

Please watch this 'incomplete sentence' vaudeville routine by Mantan Moreland & Ben Carter from the Charlie Chan movie The Scarlet Clue (Phil Rosen, 1945)

Below is Sarah Jones' 'Your Revolution' (with DJ Vadim) from Def Poetry Jam's Season 1 (2002)

Art Cinema and Modernism in Film

Persona (Ingmar Bergman, Sweden, 1966)

On the 'art cinema' and modernism in film:
Bordwell, "The Art Cinema as a Mode of Film Practice"
from Poetics of Cinema

The Social Construction of Race I

This is a short, introductory article on race and the media. As we watch Spike Lee's Bamboozled and discuss the film, Ash Corea's "Racism and the American Way of Media" is a good summary of the issues raised in the film and those that you will be reading about in greater detail with the next group of articles. As a bonus, a classic article by Stuart Hall.

Ash Corea, "Racism and the American Way of Media" from Questioning the Media
Stuart Hall, "What is This 'Black' in Black Popular Culture" from Stuart Hall: Critical Dialogues in Cultural Studies





Clip from the 1949 film Hollywood Varieties where actors Glenn Vernon and Edward Ryan apply blackface make-up while on stage and reminisce about 'the good ol' days' --as they say-- of ministrelsy.

Race and Gender Midterm Study Guide

After the usual wise and profound words of Father Guido which are so perfectly comforting during exam crunch times here is the much agonized for study guide:

Race and Gender