12
GRADUATION GUIDE / THURSDAY, MAY 12, 2011 / THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN / KANSAN.COM
---
Wide range of options available for new graduates
BY CLAIRE MCINERNY editor@kansan.com
As some seniors are preparing for jobs and planning their lives after school, some students are experiencing a different scenario the end of college panic.
Wiechman spent his two years in Saint Lucia doing community development. He helped a farmers' cooperative develop a grant proposal to get funding for a composting project from the United Nations and also taught reading and music at a school.
a way to prolong having to find a job, but rather look at it as a way to find new opportunities and new ways for students to use their passions. She said a lot of politicians who now work in Congress were in the program and are now fighting for education rights.
er. One opportunity that enables students to make that happen is through Teach for America. Teach For America is a program that allows recent college graduates to teach in public schools in low-income communities. The assign-
Four year degree later
The Peace Corps was an attrac-
WEDNESDAY, JUNE 29, 2011
PAGE14
THE UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
The Professor
"Are you going to take all of the sexism out of literature? Out of film? You have to have a critical perspective. We have to look at the work for the works' sake. Gender is one determining factor."
From Harvard to The Hill with books, beats and rhymes
Hodges Persley, assistant professor of theater, has brought her own ideas about the often despicable depiction of women in commercial rap to the University.
As part of a growing group of hip-hop academics, her scholarly work focuses on everything from hip-hop elements in African-American solo theatre to feminist roles in creating and critiquing modern rap lyrics.
The syllabus for her course, "Hip Hop in Popular Culture", warns that the class will play songs with explicit lyrics and delive into exactly what
purpose they serve.
For students here in the Midwest the subject matter can be fascinating. Hodges Persley effectively takes what is on most iPods in the room and examines the works in an academic setting — raw content and all.
"We talk about it openly in my classes. Do you filter the work of Miles Davis? I think we have to give the artist a little more credit. They know what they're saying," she said.
One of the purposes of the class is to ask students to look at the larger picture, and not focus on just the provocative lyrics in hip hop, but what message might the artist be trying to communicate and why so in that fashion, Hodges Persley said.
Julia Barnard, who took Hodges Persley's hip-hop course in Fall semester 2010, said the professor explained that hip-hop is a way to read the society we live in.
"We are showing that the Midwest has a presence in hip hop and has for a long time,"
Hodges Persley
"For example, it says something about our society that one of the most popular musical forms rose out of the African-American community, a community historically subjected to institutional and cultural discrimination," she said.
The marriage between hip-hop and academia was consummated nearly three decades ago but is hardly common knowledge.
Hodges Persley has played an integral role in the partnership between books, rhymes and beats.
She serves as one of the founding program directors for the Hiphop archives, established at Harvard in the early 2000s, and completed a PhD dissertation on "Africanamericaness" in hip-hop theatre and performance at the University of Southern California in 2008. She published essays on hip-hop in publications such as "Chicken Soup for the African-American Soul" and "Icons of Hiphop: An Encyclopedia of the Music and Culture."
Since 2009, she's been in Lawrence, which is an interesting culture twist for a woman who grew up outside Detroit and spent most of the her life on the coasts.
The student response to the hip-hop professor on campus? Her popular class has been wait-listed and, because of the demand she's working to develop another course, and focusing on how hip-hop has shaped youth movements abroad.
All of this is part of Hodges Persley's efforts to bring the University, with a minority population barely over 20 percent, to the forefront of hip-hop academia.
at Harvard for a gathering called "Author Meets the Critics," where author Tracey Sharpley-Whiting discussed her book "Pimps Up Ho's Down: Hip Hop's Hold on Young Black Woman," she said she did her best to represent her new home on the range.
"We are showing that the Midwest has a presence in hip hop and has for a long time," she said. "And I'm hoping that KU is going to push itself to be on the cutting edge."
This semester, Hodges Persley is on research leave working on her new book, "Remixing Race and Ethnicity: Sampling Blackness in Hip-Hop Performance." By the time it is complete, she will have traveled to France, England and multiple spots in the United States to investigate performance practices of hip-hop theatre and performance art. Hodges Persley has also spent time in West Africa and other countries where, she said, she sees hip-hop culture seeping into a long list of traditions.
piling into a long list of traditions. "The biggest thing that hip-hop does for me is it opens up artistic opportunities of reaching across borders," she said.
Her work with the music and its movement in the academic arena came after working as a professional actress and performer in Los Angeles. She holds credits in numerous films and television shows and is known by her colleagues and students for adding the artist's perspective to the usual academic theoretical frameworks.
Marcyliena Morgan, professor of African and African-American Studies and Executive Director of the Hip Hop Archive at Harvard, said Hodges Persley creativity is what sets her apart.
"Her understanding of high art is so important," she said.
Morgan added that she thought the Midwest would give Hodges Persley necessary inventive wiggle room.
"It's not something where the script is written. It's a question of what's going to come out of it."
The next time Hodges Persley teaches the 'Hip-Hop in Popular Culture' course will be Spring 2012.
Editor's note: This article is the first of a fourpart series offering a small sample of hip hop's story in the Heartland. The Kansan's next three issues will feature profiles of James Baker, Chelsea Ybarra and Bryan O'Brien.