A Style Nobody Can Deal With

I have heard from a few of you that the Tricia Rose reading (here online and outside my office door at HBS 207 if you weren’t in class last week!!) is a difficult read. Compelling. Fascinating. But hard to follow. Be patient with her. Seek out the big picture. What is she trying to say here.

You also might make a list of the words you don’t know and list them on your blog. Look those words up online and make links to any useful information you can find that helps you understand them. For example:

“Hip hop is an Afro-diasporic cultural form which attempts to negotiate the experiences of marginalization, brutally truncated opportunity and oppression within the cultural imperatives of African American and Carribean history, identity and community.” Check out my links (I mostly used wikipedia because the site felt rich and thorough, but you can look at any sites that help you understand the concept). Now… translation, anyone??

Also, remember to use the format I offer in the syllabus:

Some things I understand
Some things I don’t understand
Connections to texts/course themes
Questions/comments to raise in class

You can still write in a fluid, narrative form, but stay focused on making sense of the text and connecting it to other issues we have discussed. Check out Nicole’s blog for a good use of this.

I will leave you with a question to consider: how does Rose’s argument apply to 2008? Her article was published in 1994 so her examples and context are dated at this point. Do her overall claims stand up in 2008? (Sarah B sems to ask this question on her blog as well, and makes a good connection to Prensky.)

“I intend to demonstrate the importance of locating hip hop culture within the context of deindustrialization and to show how hip hop’s primary properties of flow, layering and rupture silmultaneously reflect and contest the social roles up to urban inner city youth at the end of the twentieth century” (402).

What do you think?