AAS 275 Midterm

Black cultural studies definition

field of study abt how blk culture creates + is created by societal ideas abt race, gender, sexuality, class, nationality

Many objects in Black cultural studies: Expressive cultures

- dance
- music
- art
-cooking
- games

Many objects in Black cultural studies: Mediated cultures

- film
- tv
- social media

Many methods in Black cultural studies

- textual or media analysis
- historical/archival
close readings
- application of critical theories

Who are the two major foundational thinkers in black cultural studies?

- stuart hall and bell hooks

who is Stuart hall

- jamaican british culture theorist
- talented in thinking abt representation and power
- public intellectual

who is Bell Hooks

- AA cultural theorist
- talented in thinking abt oppressive structures + how they're created and maintained
- public intellectual

Bell Hooks: From margin to center (time frame and primary argument)

- critiques white feminism that emerged from the late 1960s-1970s
- primary argument that white women who organize for feminism center their own oppression (middle class straight white women) thus making the movement inefficient + calls for recentering of blk women
- says we live in a white supremacistcapitalist heteropatriarchy"

Patricia Hill Collins

- Accomplished Sociologist
- Black Feminist Theorist
- Standpoint Theory

Kimberle crenshaw

○ Lawyer, scholar, activist
○ Currently runs the AA policy forum
○ Major thinker in the field of critical race theory
CRT (originated in law)

What is stuart halls main question about representation?

How does representation "happen,"what are its causes and effects?

What are bell hooks 2 main question about representation?

1. How is rep shaped by racism/sexism/capitalism + how are these affected by reprs?
2. How do Black women resist/support these reps

Representation

- staurt hall
- production of meaning through language

Language

- stuart hall
- "A representational system"
- Uses signs + symbols like
a. sounds
b. words
c. electronically images
d. musical notes
e. objects to stand for/represent to other people our concepts
f. ideas + feelings

reflective representation

meaning is in the obj

intentional representation

author imbues meaning

constructive representation

we construct our own meaning

Culture

- SH
- shared meanings that can be contested
- concerned w/production and exchange of meanings
- is not a set of things but a set of practices"

Text

- SH
-The cultural object/practice you analyze
- hold info abt ideologies/pwr/beliefs
- Meanings are contested
- Can be written word, images, videos, reunions, political conventions and sports events.

historical context

- SH

- hist background of text you’re analyzing

- places texts in time, place, and environment

- Info abt the society the text came from

- Some have long historical contexts (e.g. slavery)

*semiotics: what is it the study of? What uses it to communicate meaning? Give an example

- SH
-The study of signs + their role as vehicles of meaning in culture - sign/symbols
-The 'how' of rep...how languages produce meaning...poetics

-Like language, cultures use signs to communicate meaning

• ex) demure | dəˈmyo͝or | adjective (demurer, demurest)

  1) reserved, modest, and shy (typically used of a woman): a demure young lady | Antonia was pensive and demure.

  • (of clothing) giving a modest appearance: a demure knee-length skirt.

• 2) late Middle English (in the sense 'sober, serious, reserved'): perhaps from Old French demoure, past participle of demourer 'remain' (see demur); influenced by Old French mur 'grave', from Latin maturus 'ripe or mature'. The sense 'reserved, shy' dates from the late 17th century.

• 3) MODEST, unassuming, meek, mild, reserved, retiring, quiet, shy, bashful, diffident, reticent, timid, timorous, shrinking; coy; decorous, decent, seemly, ladylike, respectable, proper, virtuous, pure, innocent, maidenly, virginal, chaste; sober, sedate, staid, prim, prim and proper

Discourse

ways to refer to/create knowledge abt a topic of practice

- cluster of ideas, images, and practices

- concerned w/effects + consequences of rep + how knowledge connects w/pwr that regulates conduct, and constructs identities

Discursive Formation: def + who coined it

- SH

When many discursive events "refer to thesame object, share the same style + support a common institutional, admin/political strategy

Black representation is always shaped by thecontext of white media: who coined it? What is the system of pwr? what does it justify? what does it do?

- bell hooks

- white supremacy is the system in pwr

- reps create justifications for racism/colonialism

- reps affect how we see ppl (esp in seg society)

Rep holds oppression in place: what does it use to do this? what doe these tools create and maintain? what does this repitition do?

- BH

- Control of images = control of narrative = power

- Images are powerful tools in creating and maintaining ideas abt race, gender, sexuality and class

●The repetition of images makes it difficult to imagine alternative possibilities

power

- SH
- ability to influence the behavior of others or the course of events

Hegemony: Initial def, current def, Who coined the term? Why is Class Central? What is it manufactored through?

• OG: Winning consent of other groups in a society to view the world a specific way

• Current: Leadership by one group or country over others

• Antonio Gramsci

• Class is central: struggle is over capital (wealth) and the way we produce wealth (means of production)

• manufactured through consent + coercion

sign

-SH

language is a system of signs

- signifier of form, the actual word

- signiified: idea, what the sign triggers in your head

denotation

- SH

- Descriptive element of a sign/text/scene.Most people would agree

connotation

- SH

- The broader meaning of a sign/text/scene. We might disagree, or contest, these meanings

Myth

- Barnes

- "A traditional story, a widely held but (sometimes)false belief'

● Broad, ideological themes that connect tobroader culture-how signifiers connect tothe wider culture

ideology

-SH

A system of ideas and ideals that form abasis of economic or political thought andpolicy

Image labeling: Beyond good or bad-understand how, why, what, when

- BH

- Labeling an image as good or bad maintains the white supremacist patriarchal framework

- We should seek to understand:

○Production

○Intent

○Effects/Reception

○Historical and current context

Understanding media and creating liberatory media are priorities: Passive vs active observers

- BH

- Being passive observers = media works "on" you + on your beliefs abt the world

- Being active, critical observers means asking q's to understand ideological intent behind media

*Moya Bailey

- African American feminist theorist
- coined the term MISOGYNOIR
- Disabilities studies, digital studies

What questions does Moya Bailey ask

- What is the unique form of racism and sexism that Black women face in digital cultures?
- How do Black women transform misogynoir in digital cultures?

*Misogynoir

-MB
co-constitutive racialized and sexist violence that befalls Black women as a result of their simultaneous and interlocking oppression at the intersection of racial and gender marginalization

Digital alchemy

-MB
The process of transforming harmful ideas/material into harm reducers by remixing, satire, sarcasm, and other strategies
-one way that Blk women and non-binary/agender/gender variant ppl participate in harm reduction
- product and process

Moya bailey concepts

- Media shapesideas of "sex," "gender," "biology," and"normal."● - Media is responsible for how people are represented; they create narratives even as they claimobjectivity
- Representation affects policy + material conditions for Black women

fame

state of being known/talked abt, especially for notable achievements

cost of fame

In music: fame + celebrity mixed w/social media+ 24-hour news cycle means = Black women performers have more exposure/ feedback/more media attention than ever before.
- can cause extreme stress, anxiety, and poor mental health.

Patriarchy def and how it functions in music

The system of how society is set up
- cis men are hold power
- women + gender varient are largely excluded
In music
- highest positions in pwr are men
- they make decisions abt branding/get famous/market stars
- catered towards mens pov
- executives often commit sexual assault + harrassment

Domestic violence

- Violent and aggressive behavior within intimate relationships
In music
- stars + women executives subject to domestic violence from partners/lovers/managers/executives.

Mental illness

- A behavioral/mental pattern that causes significant distress and/or impairment of personal functioning
In music
- Many women, of all races, have dealt with mental health issues. Black women = particularly vulnerable bc of the racism + misogynoir

Black feminism def

- the articulation of the experiences of those oppressed by anti-Black racism and sexism
- movement by/centers Black women, historically and in the
present day, to speak truth about their experiences
- It is a political orientation
- It is a love ethic
- It is a critical lens
- Not monolithic
● Can be intellectual, activist, spiritual, ethical, community-based

History of blk feminism - what it's NOT

- NOT an outgrowth of mainstream or white feminism
- NOT antagonistic towards Black men
- DOESN'T choose btwn the effects of racism + sexism on the lives of Black women

History of blk feminism: ppl + dates 1920s-now

● Sojourner Truth, Anna Julia Cooper, Ida B. Wells, and Mary Church Terrell
● Club Women of the 1920s
● Feminist movement and Civil Rights leaders of the 1940s-1960s
● Activist movements in the 1970s-1980s (at forefront of establishing Black Studies and WGS programs)
● Intellectual consolidation in the 1990s-today

History of blk feminism: main women + characteristics

- Sojourner Truth
- Anna Julia Cooper
- Ida B. Wells
- Mary Church Terrell
- "proto-feminists" were concerned w/stereotypes +
mischaracterizations of Bk women based on race + gender
- Many interested in being included in the definition of "women," something foreclosed to enslaved women
- Generally conservative views on sexuality, marriage and family
- Highly educated

History of blk feminism: Club Women of the 1890s-1930s

- Engaged in cultural uplift through determined education
- Activists against lynching and rape
- Conservative views on family and religion
- Founders of the NACW and NAACP

History of blk feminism: Feminist movement and Civil Rights leaders of the 1940s-1960s

- Women such as Ella Baker, Fannie Lou Hamer, Pauli Murray, and DorothyHeight
- Worked for voting rights while facing sexism within the
movement
- Many behind the scenes doing organizing work while men were upfront
- Lawyers, organizers, speakers and businesswomen

History of blk feminism: Activist movements in the 1970s-1980s

- Women such as Loretta Ross, Audre Lorde, June Jordan and Toni Cade Bambara
- At the forefront of establishing Black Studies and WGS programs
- Very outspoken abt sexual violence and reproductive rights
- Often anti-war as well
- Worked with white women on legislation on welfare + Equal Rights Amendment

Patricia Hill Collins book concept

- Blk women are often misrepresented/ignored in research and in higher edu
- blk womens knowledge considered inaccurate/less than
- it is necessary to center their experiences, voices and thoughts when doing research on/with them

*Intersectionality: def, who coined it, what is it not intended to do, what is it about (image)

how black women are rendered invisible through the legal system because of race and gender

- coined by kimberle crenshaw
- Anti-discrim framework (never intended to see how many oppressions you can compound)
- Abt the complications that occur at an intersection w/someone trying to make their way with all the chaos

Why is intersectionlity unique

- Applies specifically to the context of the legal system
- Analytic that can be used as a method

DeGraffenreid v. General Motors

- Either Congress didn't comprehend the possibility of "Black women" being discriminated against, or, Congress didn't intend to protect Black women

Moore v. Hughes Helicopters

- Blk women can't represent all women...bc race. White women don't have a "race"under U.S. law

Payne v. Travenol

- Blk women can't represent all Black people...because gender.
- The men do not actually have a gender (only women do, because they deviate from the"norm")

*What is a category of artistic work characterized by similar styles, forms or subject?

genre

*What is "The other" and whose ideas were these? Which two authors used this key concept?

is a subject position marked by marginalization and difference.

- SH

- BH

*Who argued if black women were free, everyone else would be free?

Combahee river collective

*Author bell hooks describes the process by which black women refuse to identify and resist dominant narratives as the ___________ __________

oppositional gaze

*Name all 7 of patricia hill collims controlling images

1. mammy
2. matriarch
3. black lady
4. Jezebel
5. welfare queen
6. Hoochie mama
7. Sapphire

*Mammy

§ Faithful, obedient, domestic servant
§ Justifies economic exploitation of house slaves + restriction of black women to domestic servants
§ Loving, nurturing, caring for the white kids + fam better than her own
§ She may have considerable authority + be loved but still knows her place
§ Maintains oppression and teaches it to her fam

*Matriarch

depicts blk women as controlling and domineering, yet often not sexual
§ Female headed household in the blk household
§ Connected to poverty
§ Bad blk mother who failed to fufill traditional womanly duties
□ Spending too much time away from home: Working moms don't supervise kids like they should so they end up failing in school
§ Overly aggressive/ Unfeminine/ Too strong
□ Inability to model gender behavior: Emasculated their lovers so their husbands deserted or refused to marry them

*Black Lady

§ Middle class professional blk woman
§ Reps the modern version of the politics of respectability
§ Women who stayed in school, worked hard have achieved much
□ Idea that they work 2xs as hard as everyone else
□ Idea that they work so much they forget abt marriage/men and are too assertive that's why they don't marry
□ Believed to be taking jobs meant for blk men

*Jezebel

- Originated during slavery as the image of a sexually aggressive, lustful Black woman
- Used to justify sexual violence by White men
- Represents deviant, excessive sexuality and contrasts with White female purity
- Portrays Black women as "temptresses" or "whores"

*Welfare queen

a controlling image that shows blk women are irresponsible moms to their own children who manipulate the welfare system for benefits
§ OG came from slavery when it was declared that black women were ideal for giving birth bc they were like animals
§ Working class blk woman who gets welfare
§ Sits around and doesn't work to collect welfare money: Fails to pass on work ethic
§ Unmarried + has many kids

*Hoochie mama

- Contemporary version of the jezebel, popularized in music and media
- Portrayed as a "ghetto" woman who dresses provocatively and seeks attention
- Seen as a "freak" or hypersexual, often linked to poverty and single motherhood
- Reflects ongoing stigmatization of Black women's sexuality in pop culture

*Sapphire

- Angry, loud, emasculating Black woman
- Verbally abusive, argumentative, and hostile toward men (especially Black men)
- Often portrayed as nagging, domineering, and impossible to please
- Used to depict Black women as bitter or "angry" — the infamous "Angry Black Woman" trope is a modern version
- Works to silence Black women's legitimate anger about racism and sexism by labeling it as irrational
- Serves as a warning to both Black men and women about being "too outspoken" or "too strong"

Combahee River Collective

- Founded in 1974 boston, ma
- Named for the Civil War raid on southern plantations planned and executed by harriet tubman
- organized for deseg + against police brutality + awareness of murdered blk women
- free blk women + everyone else will be free
- Members active in the National Black Feminist Organization but left bc of lack of class and sexuality politics

Identity politics

basis for discussing material realities and forming political praxis amd coalition across groups

Epistemology

-pc
theory of knowledge (how we know what we know) involves
- methods
- legitimacy
- expertise

5 key characters of epistemology

1. Lived experience matters for knowledge production
2. Dialogue is central to assessing what we know
3. An ethic of caring is necessary for a researcher
4. Personal accountability for the knowledge you create
5. Black women are legitimate agents of knowledge about their own lives

Standpoint theory

- pc
- or an approach to understanding marginalized communities that takes their specific lived experiences into account.

Oppositional Gaze: what is it? Hooks perspective? What is it in response to? When does it emerge?

• A site of resistance for diasporic Black peoples

• BH: Blk women interaction w/film/texts (and other visual media) bc they understand the diff btwn how they're rep + how they actually are

• response to the absence of a Black female"gaze" in media texts

• emerges when Blk women spectators make an intentional choice to engage critically with the forms of racism and sexism in a text, and reject the hegemonic forms of identification

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Spectatorship - how does one do it? What is it in film theory, why is it complicated?

- The act of watching a film, game or show
- In film theory = a process where spectators can be passive or active
- complicated by the way films are made to force/encourage/
complicate who we identify with in a text

Identification: what does the term suggest? What does it mean in film theory? What are films and other texts constructed to do?

- Psychoanalytic term suggests we have capacity to empathize or relate to others, sometimes to a fault
- In film theory = empathizing
or viewing a film from the perspective of a specific character
- Films and other texts are constructed to encourage identification with certain characters

Identification: How are characters are constructed? What do passive spectators do? What do active spectators do?

- influenced by ideologies, stereotypes, structures of domination
- PS: no choice but to accept film makers perspective
AS: identify/reject/negotiate identification

The gaze: Who was the OG theorists and what is it? What does the perspective do? What is evidence of this? What does this cause?

- OG = Laura Mulvey, "the gaze" is the perspective from
which a filmmaker constructs a film
- This perspective forces the
spectator to "see" a film/text from a specific subject position. (mainstream + white male)
- Evidence = how women are objectified
- causes crisis for women spectators bc forced to identify w/male gaze + participate in their own objectification

The gaze: what does hooks argue against Mulvey's theory? What is the gaze for hooks?

-by not taking account of racialized forms of constructing film, and Blk spectatorship, Mulvey misses how some spectators come to reject or negotiate the constructed gaze of a film text
-For BH: "the gaze" is gendered + racialized + marginalized spectators have agency in how they interact with the film/text

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Agency: define it. How do critical theories use it?

- Action/ intervention to produce an effect; dynamic
- In critical theories: is one way to describe how indivs + communities negotiate pwr w/in institutions + societies

Intertextuality

The accumulation of meanings across different texts, where one image refers to another, or has its meaning altered by being 'read' in the context of other images

Stereotypes: what are they? Are they positive or negative?

- widely held/fixed/ oversimplified image of a person/thing/idea
- Fixed idea abt groups of ppl that serve to categorize them easily w/little need to engage furtjer
- Can be positive and negative

Stereotyping

The process of reducing people to a few simple characteristics. Stereotyping reduces, essentializes, and naturalizes difference

Contradictory reps in stereotypes

○ Both ±
○ Blk women are both excellent carers for white fams and the same time awful mothers to their own

Ethnocentrism

The application of norms of one's own culture to that of
others'

Plantation life + binaries: what is the binary btwn? What is zero-sum logic

-Us regime of rep remains based on plantation life
- relies on binary btwn white + blk to justify racism + racial inequality
- Zero-sum logic (if blk ppl "win" then white ppl "loose")

Empire and commoditites: Since the beginning of european expansion what did white slave owners do? Explain the regime they created? What being purched really meant

- since European expansion, white plantation owners have utilized commodities to justify racism
- Making it something that could be purchased (like the humans they were selling) made it less offensive
- Created a regime of rep that placed ppl of color as less-than (bc they could be bought) and took control of the mode of rep

Naturalizing difference: explain this concept + give an example. Explain how race, sex and culture play into this. What is the problem with naturalizing this?

-Anyone who is different = biol diff + it's normal
§ Ex. Saying blk ppl can/can't do anything bc there are bio diffs connected to skin color
○ No genetic basis for race
○ Sex exists on a continuum of naturally occuring diversity
○ Culture early experiences , environment play a major role in socialization
- naturalizing diff = we find the prob inside of ppl not the structures of society that make them less than

Regime of representation

having the symbolic + political pwr to rep others + control the mode by which those representations are made (and matter)

Transcoding: define and give an example

- Using existing meanings to create new meanings
- Ex. Stay woke bc the gov finds ways to get to blk ppl now it's left beliefs (DEI, transrights, etc)

Difference and sexuality: why is exoticization bad?

- Exoticization of diffs can lead to the exoticization of sexuality
- Portraying "others" as unusual or unique
- Glamorizing or romanticizing
- Dismisses the actual person, turns them into an object

Fantasy and fetishization: what were fetishes originally? What is our in class definition? What does this do?

○ OG fetishes = considered to have magical powers bc they were inhabited by spirits
○ In this class fetishization = to imbue a person/group of ppl w/particular magical powers

• The substitution of a part for the whole of a thing. Dismisses the actual person and turns them into an object.

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Fantasy and fetishization: how do stereotypes play into this? What does it mean to fetishize an "other"

- Stereotypes create fantasies abt "others" (can be sexual): imbue that person or group with magical sexual powers that fulfill the fantasy of the stereotype others created about them
○ Becomes complicated when artists play into fantasy
○ Dominant culture disavows desire to engage in this fantasy

Hegemony: Define it, Who coined the term? Why is Class Central? What is it manufactored through?

- Leadership by one group or country over others
- Antonio Gramsci
- Class is central: struggle is over capital (wealth) and the way we produce wealth (means of production)
○ manufactured through consent + coercion

Bell Hooks Black Looks book

- look at how blk ppl are represented in pop culture + how they interact with reps + how to critically engage w/them

How do the representations of Black women's sexuality influence Black women throughout their lifecycle?

- Sets expectations for young Black girls + ppl around them
- says Blk women/ girls = inherently promiscuous
- Refuses them agency to coming into their own sexualities
- Limits the option of sexuality to heterosexual
- Determines who is/isn't worthy of being sexual
- Frames their sexuality in terms of a male gaze, not her health + pleasure