The University of Arizona has announced that it has created a “Hip-Hop Concentration” minor under the Africana Studies department, the first of its kind for any institution, according to the school’s website.
The course’s objectives are to “provide students with a solid introduction and broad understanding of the origins and developing of the forms of expression that make up hip-hop culture throughout the world: hip-hop dance, rap music, graffiti/tagging, fashion, business, and film.
The minor introduces students to the main themes represented in hip-hop cultures: appropriation and defense of spaces, mixing of different cultures, migrations, multilingualism, race, class, gender, religions, sexuality, nationality, politics and the economy, and, the search for identity.”
It’s evident that The University of Arizona is not afraid to try different things and be somewhat of a trendsetter.
“The UA is more open to new, challenging, ambitious, creative and even controversial topics than almost any other university in the world,” Alain-Philippe Durand, director of Africana Studies at the University of Arizona explained. “Here, you are not told to stay in your corner. It is the opposite: You are constantly pushed and encouraged to break boundaries.”
Courses for the minor include “Rap, Culture and God,” “Hip-Hop Cinema,” “Blacks in Hollywood” and more.
The minor’s aim is to ultimately give students the opportunity to seek out and realize hip-hop’s cultural impact on many parts of life.
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