Scott Saul - English 166AC: Race and Performance in the 20th Century U.S.
In this course students grapple with the reality and the unreality of race in America - developing an understanding of how race has structured American history through institutions like slavery and also as fiction or performance. In dealing with minstrelsy, vaudeville, and ragtime; the blues and blackface in early Hollywood film; manifestations of cultural rebellion through rock and roll, and the countercultural challenge of the Black Power movement, this course spins race as a structure creating unequal outcomes and as a perofrmance magnetizing American popular culture.