Students are required to submit a 6-8 page paper (double-spaced, 12 pt) based on

Students are required to submit a 6-8 page paper (double-spaced, 12 pt) based on a contemporary product of black popular culture. Examples of cultural products include but are not limited to music videos, albums, films, stand up comedy routines, television show episodes, and web series. By Week Two, the instructor will identify the cultural materials that will be the subject of the term paper and post specific questions designed to stimulate critical engagement with the material, prompting students to make links between the material and key concepts that the course introduces such as defining blackness and diaspora, the multiplicity of black subjectivities, the global circulation of black cultures, and representing the black body. Students are required to view the material and answer these questions by Week Four, then submit the full paper by Week Six.

There is a choice of THREE documentary films to be the subject of the Final Term Paper: When We Were Kings, Afro-Punk: A Documentary, and Bakoso. Links to each of these films along with relevant supplemental materials are available in the “Term Paper Questions” tab in the Assignments folder. The Term Paper Thought Questions are designed to stimulate critical engagement with one of the films as well as provide a foundation for the Final Term Paper. Thorough, thoughtful answers to the questions can serve as a rough draft of the film analysis portion of the Final Term Paper.