Hip hop studies this summer

How about a little hip-hop? KU theatre professor and AMS scholar Nicole Hodges Persley is bringing her smash hit course to the summer schedule. Click the flyer for more.

Jewish American Pop Culture in the summer

Check out this intensive summer course, good for your popular culture concentration or general mind expansion. Professor Henry Bial, author of Acting Jewish: Negotiating Ethnicity on the American Stage and Screen, presides. Here is his description of the course:



AMS 344 / THR 380 / JWSH 300 -- Jewish American Pop Culture
MTWRF 11:30 am - 1:30 pm -- June 7 - July 1 (first four weeks of Summer session)

This course explores the dramatic and theatrical strategies used by Jewish American writers, directors, and actors to negotiate Jewish identity on the American stage and screen over the last 100 years. In addition to discussing the functions of these specific representations, we will also examine the performance-driven quality of identity in general. In what ways can Jewishness be viewed as a theatrical construction, both on and off the stage and screen? Our primary objects of study will be drawn from film and television, but we will also consider theatre, music, stand-up comedy, and the internet. Specific titles under consideration may include: Fiddler on the Roof, Seinfeld, Oklahoma!, The Jazz Singer, Family Guy, Annie Hall, Diary of Anne Frank, Angels in America, The Hebrew Hammer, The Goldbergs, Death of a Salesman, Gentleman’s Agreement, Licensed to Ill, A Serious Man, The Nanny.

Hip-hop Studies

AAAS professor and friend of AMS Tony Bolden is offering a course in hip-hop studies this fall, which will be crosslisted with AMS 696. This course is open to both undergraduate and graduate students- click the image for a flyer.

Gender & Popular Music this summer

More detail on Chris Robinson's summer course:

WGSS 396: Studies in Gender and American Popular Music
Notions of what it means to be a man or woman, what is considered masculine or feminine, and a musician’s gender, sexuality and race dictate not only how a musician constructs and perceives his or her own music and image, but also how the American public, their fans and the music industry perceive and accept or disavow the musician and their music. This course will examine the importance of, and the roles that gender, femininity and masculinity have played in shaping numerous aspects of 20th Century American popular music. Central to this course will be how gender roles and perceptions have been socially constructed and perpetuated in American culture. The intersectionality of race and gender will also play a central part in this course. As common gender paradigms change over time this course will place gender, masculinity and femininity in social and historical context to better understand the cultural processes at work. In addition to gender, power, politics and economics play crucial roles in shaping the discourse surrounding musicians, their music, and American cultural conceptions of gender. This interdisciplinary course will draw on disciplines, methods and approaches that include history, musicology, gender and race theory, English, African American Studies, Jazz Studies, semiotics and material culture studies.