This  new course traces the foundations of what has become Black
Popular Culture, locating its social, political, and theoretical
manifestations  and its currency in the global marketplace.  It
begins with the concept that Africans, when entering  America did
not do so  culturally empty-handed. Their expressive culture
developed in resistance to, and defiance  of the social order. We
will measure these developments in four primary genres and  cultural
modes: music, film, oral culture, and lifestyle. We will establish a
matrix of analysis that will allow both group and independent
research from a series of  readings in historical, theoretical, and
performance studies.