Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy (Hardcover, New)

From former M.L.A. president Baker (English and Black Studies/University of Pennsylvania): four essays in defense of Black Studies and rap that tend to grow muddled and slip from your grasp. "Black Studies: A New Story" offers a superficial glance at what brought Black Studies into being ("What was required...was a revocabularization of academic discourse") and at how the new discipline was greeted by the establishment ("What generally occurred...was moral panic as a function of territorial contestation"). In "The Black Urban Beat: Rap and the Law," Baker sees rap as a way "to provide sometimes stunning territorial confrontations between black urban expressivity and white law-and-order." This last being arguably a false dichotomy doesn't keep Baker from concluding - after a faintly unified meditation on urban space, rappers 2 Live Crew, and the Central Park jogger case - that "Positive sites of rap represent...a profitable, agential resource for an alternative American legality." Meaning becomes increasingly obscured as the essays move on and Baker hides behind yet more words. The uncertain merits of 2 Live Crew are little clarified by his assertion that the group "is less a causal site of agency than a single point of imbrication in an intricate social (and preeminently materialist) narrative." Rap, Baker concludes ("Hybridity, Rap, and Pedagogy for the 1990s"), "is now classical black sound," but the claim isn't strengthened by the sound of the essayist's own reasoning - as in the following parenthetical definition en route to his conclusion: "By postmodern I intend the nonauthoritative collaging or archiving of sound and styles that bespeaks a deconstructive hybridity. Linearity and progress yield to a dizzying synchronicity." Ideas worth hearing - and knowing - more about. But, on balance, Baker offers here a float across jargon-choked shallows. (Kirkus Reviews)

In this explosive book, Houston Baker takes stock of the current state of Black Studies in the university and outlines its responsibilities to the newest form of black urban expression--rap. A frank, polemical essay, Black Studies, Rap, and the Academy is an uninhibited defense of Black Studies and an extended commentary on the importance of rap. Written in the midst of the political correctness wars and in the aftermath of the Los Angeles riots, Baker's meditation on the academy and black urban expression has generated much controversy and comment from both ends of the political spectrum.

General

Imprint:	University of Chicago Press
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Black Literature & Culture Series BLC
Release date:	June 1993
First published:	June 1993
Authors:	J.R. Baker
Dimensions:	212 x 141 x 2mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	117
Edition:	New
ISBN-13:	978-0-226-03520-8
Categories:	Books > Language & Literature > Literature: history & criticism > Literary studies > General Books > Reference & Interdisciplinary > Interdisciplinary studies > Cultural studies > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Ethnic studies > Black studies Promotions
LSN:	0-226-03520-4
Barcode:	9780226035208

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