Black Class: Stories of Race and Consumption form the Harlem Renaissance to Hip Hop

AMST498P

This course examines the ways that material evidence conveys stories of African American class identities of the past and the present. We will learn and apply the techniques for interpreting historical sources reading visual culture, and analyzing artifacts. From representations of domestic life in the photographs, to MTV’s “Cribs,” and HBO’s “The Wire,” we will consider major cultural transformations and fixations that have dominated African American middle-class spaces. The end result will be to create a “virtual” exhibition of our collective research on black people and their stories of race, class, and consumption.