ENC 5421 - Spring 2025 - Browdy

This course traces the digital side of Black feminist thought and practice. We will focus on the role of music, movement, and making—that is, the vernacular rhetorical literacies—that have been used throughout the generations by Black women to persuade, educate, protect, and serve. The course will be divided into three units, all which will sit at the intersections of multimedia and activism: 1) Sounds of Revolution (focusing on the role of music and alternative digital practices in Black women discourses, e.g., spirituals, quilting, blues, jazz, and hip-hop); 2) Traditions of the Collective (focusing on writing from print to online spaces as a form of solidarity building and mobilization, e.g., pamphlets, autobiographies, blogging); 3) Hashtag This (engaging digital activism focusing on Black woman-created and/or -led sociopolitical movements and online advocacy, e.g., hashtags, content creators, social media as platform). Throughout the semester, students will produce small reflective projects related to each unit. These smaller assignments will inform a larger critical work as a final project.