Black Feminist Approaches to Black Popular Culture Pedagogy – Background/Intro – UROP Spring Symposium 2021

Black Feminist Approaches to Black Popular Culture Pedagogy – Background/Intro

Maya Ferguson

UROP Logo

Pronouns: She/her/hers

Research Mentor(s): Lydia Kelow-Bennett, Assistant Professor
Research Mentor School/College/Department: Department of Afroamerican and African Studies, College of Literature, Science, and the Arts
Presentation Date: Thursday, April 22, 2021
Session: Session 1 (10am-10:50am)
Breakout Room: Room 1
Presenter: 1

Event Link

Abstract

Black popular culture and Black feminisms in social media have become generative pedagogical sites in previous years. With the rise of celebrities such as Beyoncé and Lizzo, and the explosion of social media as a primary means of creating cultural discourses, students are increasingly interested in how gender, race, sexuality, class, and other vectors of identity shape their entertainment experiences. Yet, few teachers feel comfortable effectively teaching Black popular culture using an intersectional lens. This project will construct a guidebook for teaching Black popular culture using Black feminist pedagogies and best practices from seasoned educators, to provide educators with a comprehensive framework and concrete strategies for teaching Black popular culture across disciplines. This project uses a variety of sources from interviews to books to educational studies in order to look at what it means to teach popular culture through the lens of Black feminism. Our research team has studied Black popular culture and Black feminism in an academic setting in order to better understand how to ask questions for our interviews we conducted for the project. The questions this guidebook will answer are: 1) What is Black feminism? 2) What methods can I use for teaching that fall under the framework of Black feminism? 3) How can I ensure these methods of teaching allow students to get the most out of their experience, academically and personally? The goal for this guidebook is to be used as a resource for educators across the country. Since Black feminism and Black popular culture have not been taught widely among classrooms, we hope this guidebook will start making these methods and ideas accessible.

Authors: Maya Ferguson, Lydia Kelow-Bennett, Nikki Lane
Research Method: Library/Archival/Internet Research

lsa logoum logo