Augmented Bodies: the arena of the black body
My project is a scholarly project that refuses the distinction between pedagogy and theory. I understand the classroom as a genuinely cultural site, and I am acutely aware of how its confines potentiate theory. The object of my scholarship/teaching is the representation of blackness in American popular culture. I say "blackness" to differentiate it from a discussion of race, because this is not a project that is concerned with the various constructions of other racial identities besides blackness, nor does it need to be. For far too long, the trend has been to only discuss blackness as it pertains to the universal, the uninvestigated norm that is whiteness, or to discuss blackness and where it fits in with other "minorities", again as they relate to the white norm. The responses to this critique within the class form part of the cultural context against which I examine this notion of blackness.
The links at the top of this page provide other information about the performance of this project across traditional scholarly communities as well as across curricula where theoretical formulations speak in surprising ways.
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