African American Rhetoric & Image

This course is designed to help us understand how African Americans have used symbols to construct and reconstruct images of themselves and their communities over time, primarily through music, public address, and media.

We look at a variety of texts and contexts including: slavery and spirituals; civil rights and freedom songs; and Chappelle’s Show sketch comedy, and hip hop. Unit 1 looks at rhetorical constructions of race and community, considering Blackness and Whiteness theoretically. Unit 2 looks at foundations of African American Rhetoric from an American historical-literary perspective. Unit 3 looks at African American Rhetoric in the 21st Century in order to better understand mediated representations of African Americans. Our goals are to: have fun; to look at and listen to images with critical eyes and open ears; to study the impact of racialized communication on the social and symbolic construction of the United States; and to understand the ways in which African American identities are constructed, maintained, and mobilized.