Electronic Theses and Dissertations

Date

2020

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Name

Doctor of Philosophy

Department

Communication

Committee Chair

Amanda Edgar

Committee Member

Andre Johnson

Committee Member

Antonio de Velasco

Committee Member

Susan Nordstrom

Abstract

This project examines representations about Black masculinity in Black popular culture, emphasizing how ideas about vulnerability and resistance converge. I draw from methods and theoretical assumptions in rhetorical and media studies to examine how these masculinities are represented. This project offers what I term Resistive Black Masculinities as a theoretical framework to examine how Black men in Black popular culture are represented both as socially vulnerable and as resisting their vulnerability. Additionally, this project considers how Resistive Black Masculinities are made legible in Black popular culture through what I refer to as a hip-hop sensibility. Through three case studies, I demonstrate how Resistive Black Masculinities and its related components manifest in Black popular culture. These case studies include analyses of Black masculinity in popular rapper J. Coles album 2014 Forest Hills Drive (2014), the interracial buddy movie Blindspotting (2018), and the first season of Foxs television show Empire. In doing so, this project offers a multifaceted conceptual framework for analyzing Black masculinities in conversation with vulnerability and resistance.

Comments

Data is provided by the student.

Library Comment

Dissertation or thesis originally submitted to ProQuest

Notes

embargoed

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