Know-the-Ledge Bibliography

Alicia Taylor is a smart and attractive college senior who believes that willful and determined are more than just personality descriptions; they are a way of life. She has goals for her life that do not include giving in to her intense feelings for her childhood nemesis, Darren Whitman. Determined to protect her heart from the player no matter how reformed he claims to be, she sets out to prove that he is not as interested as he claims and ends up proving that she is not as over him as she believed.

Yale professor Cohen combines rigorous research and fresh sociological insights to build her argument that a black political agenda based solely on race promotes exclusionary practices. Cohen tracked responses to AIDS by black civic and church leaders and media in New York City (where, since 1990, AIDS has infected more blacks than any other racial or ethnic group), finding that they have espoused an understanding of racial identity that privileges middle-class, heterosexual males, while using code words "to designate who was expendable." Starting at the beginning of the AIDS crisis, she compares coverage by network television news and the New York Times with that of black newspapers and magazines. Cohen attributes the failure of black media to focus on AIDS at the beginning of the epidemic to homophobia, classism and sexism, resulting in the extreme stigmatization of the most disempowered members of black communities. She finds that in the 1980s, the black political response to AIDS came largely from black lesbians and gays. In recent years, women and children of color have come to be most at risk, while the black media focuses on alternative treatments and new heterosexual dating patterns in response to AIDS. Although Cohen's analysis is encumbered by academic jargon, it is astute and eye-opening.

Philosophy sounds like dry, ancient wisdom to modern youth - but it takes a different, more contemporary approach when led by hip-hop fans who have studied the pursuit of wisdom and come up with contemporary associations. HIP HOP & PHILOSOPHY: RHYME 2 REASON pairs great philosophers and their works to rap classics by Lauryn Hill, OutKast and others to show rap can help uncover the meaning of such philosophers as Plato. A delightful, fun presentation invites young college students to understand underlying meanings in both ancient and modern texts.

Incisive analyses of mass media -- including such forms as talk shows, MTV, the internet, soap operas, television sitcoms, dramatic series, pornography, and advertising--enable this provocative new edition of Gender, Race and Class in Media to engage students in critical mass media scholarship. Issues of power related to gender, race, and class are integrated into a wide range of articles examining the economic and cultural implications of mass media as institutions, including the political economy of media production, textual analysis, and media consumption. Ten new, original essays are included in this text, along with compelling previously published articles and book chapters by both established media scholars and new voices in the field. Together with new section introductions by Gail Dines and Jean Humez, the readings provide a solid yet accessible critical introduction to mass media studies.

From Publishers Weekly
"[P]reacher and public intellectual" Dyson (Making Malcolm) offers a lucid, mostly stimulating roundup of op-eds, reviews and articles about books, music, people and politics. An ordained Baptist minister, at 35 he has his finger on the pulse of the younger generation, so he can criticize the NAACP for losing touch with the grass roots and criticize gangsta rap for sexism and homophobia-but observe that attacks on it divert attention from more important threats to society as a whole. A few articles seem ephemeral, but most pieces on music-from Sam Cooke to Vanessa Williams to Public Enemy-reveal a fan's enthusiasm filtered through the screen of racial history. Dyson opens and closes the book with personal essays: a reflective letter to his incarcerated brother and an almost mawkish letter to his (third) wife in which he recounts his painful path to maturity in relationships. In Dyson's best essay, on the culture wars, he calls for the nation "to own up to its rich and creolized practice"; thus he recalls his own sturdy education in Detroit, where wise mentors fed him black culture high and low and fueled his omnivorous intellectual appetite.

When Bill Cosby, iconic figure of American fatherhood, began criticizing the child-raising attributes of the black urban poor, he provoked a storm of discussion within the black community. Dyson places the comedian in the tradition of black elites, referred to as "Afristocrats," who were highly critical of poor blacks for making the race look bad in front of white folks. Dyson's real strength is in explaining some of the social factors that contribute to the actions of the poor. Dyson critiques the changes within Cosby himself, a man whose great insights on the social causes of black poverty made him comforting to whites and comfortable with whites. Dyson critiques Cosby's own failures at parenting: one daughter who fell victim to drug abuse, and another daughter, born of an extramarital affair, whom he supported but later charged with extortion. Dyson is thorough and places Cosby in check, but his book still begs for discussion of the consequences of social dysfunctionality beyond historical repetition and the imperfections of America's most popular race-neutral dad.

In the final book in a collaborative series between the New York Public Library and Oxford University Press on the seven deadly sins, Dyson examines pride in its many iterations, invoking pop culture icons and events to lend accessibility to a potentially didactic subject. (Francine Prose wrote earlier of gluttony, Wendy Wasserstein of sloth...) "If pride is a sin," Dyson writes, "it is no ordinary sin, to be sure." Indeed, Dyson, a prolific author, professor at the University of Pennsylvania and an ordained Baptist minister, takes his time in explicating the virtues and dangers of pride. Although an initial chapter on the "philosophical and religious roots of pride" proves less than engaging, Dyson's discussions of "personal pride," "white pride," "black pride" and "national pride" are thoughtful and exhibit a fine balance of scholarship and philosophizing. In the black pride section, the book's liveliest, Dyson (Is Bill Cosby Right? Or Has the Black Middle Class Lost Its Mind?) talks about political figures such as Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and the effects they do and do not have on the black electorate. He analyzes Halle Berry's and Denzel Washington's acceptance speeches at the 2002 Academy Awards, concluding one was "brave," the other "cool." Readers already familiar with the "sins" series will welcome this final volume, as will those interested in issues of race.

That's the Joint brings together the best-known and most influential writings on rap and hip-hop from its beginnings to today. Spanning nearly 25 years of scholarship, criticism, and journalism, this unprecedented anthology showcases the evolution and continuing influence of one of the most creative and contested elements of global popular culture since its advent in the late 1970s. Think of it as "Hip-Hop 101." Assembled with great care by Mark Anthony Neal, hailed as "one of the most brilliant cultural critics of his generation" (Chicago Sun Times)] and fellow hip-hop scholar Murray Forman, That's the Joint is the first to attempt to present the most important hip-hop scholarship in one comprehensive volume. The articles presented here display a diverse array of concerns, illuminating hip-hop in its broadest conception as both a musical and cultural practice. You will find critiques of groundbreaking recordings like Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five's "The Message"and Public Enemy's "It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back," some of the earliest commentary on B-Boys break dancing and DJs sampling, and serious responses to key moments and controversies from the 2 Live Crew obscenity trial to gangsta rap to the movement of hip-hop into commercial and academic spheres.

"Adam Mansbach's cultishly popular novel about an "Angry Black White Boy" who ignites a nationwide race furor seemed an unlikely property for stage translation. But adaptor (as well as title-role player) Dan Wolf and collaborators have pulled it off. This very funny, frequently electric take on an outrageous story is billed as a "new play with live music" -- though it's no musical. Rather, it's hip-hop theater that seems destined for extended life. The book's careening parable feels like a more multiculturally aware equivalent to the literary provocations of older cult author Chuck Palahniuk, with its wild plot hooks, credibly eccentric characters and trenchant apocalyptic comedy.... ingenious street-dance-slash-mime stylized movement [and] occasional recorded snippets mesh with the cast's rapping, human beatboxing, singing and keyboarding -- all cleverly driving the narrative forward rather than overpowering it. Visual design contributions are sharp but minimal, as the dynamic four performers' multiple-role-playing, multidisciplinary talents supply all spectacle needed."
-Variety