Author Meets The Critics Event: Hip-hop Archive

The Hiphop Archive at Harvard University's W.E.B. DuBois Institute hosted a Hiphop Workout Session event called Author Meets The Critics: That's The Joint! 2nd Edition on November 17, 2011. I was invited to speak about the new edition of That's The Joint!: The HipHop Studies Reader. Editors Murray Forman (Northeastern) and Mark Anthony Neal (Duke) were present and offered insights to their process in developing both editions of the now seminal text in Hiphop Studies. Other critics that joined me in talking about this amazing volume were Vijay Prashad (Trinity College), Guthrie P. Ramsey, Jr. (University of Pennsylvania), and Joycelyn A. Wilson (W. E. B. Du Bois Institute Hiphop Archive Fellow). This event was a fantastic experience to meet new colleagues and senior scholars who have paved the way for my work in Hiphop Studies. I had dinner with everyone after and shared fantastic conversations about new directions in the field. I look forward to sharing this experience with my graduate students after the Thanksgiving break.

ASA 2011 Digital Displays

I just got back from chairing an amazing panel I organized on women in the blogosphere at The American Studies Association (ASA) in Baltimore. entiled "Digital Displays: Women Imagining The Blogosphere as Alternative Public Spheres" sponsored by the American Studies Women’s Committee on Saturday, October 22nd. The amazing panel featured Jennifer Stover Ackerman ( SUNY Binghamton and Editor in Cheif of the sound studies blog Sounding Out!) Tanya Golash-Boza (University of Kansas, author of the blog Get a Life, Ph.D), Judy Lubin (Howard University, author of the blog Judy Lubin’s Leading Voices) and Jamie Schmidt Wagman (Saint Louis University). I hope to upload paper abstracts here soon. A great weekend and an important panel that engages digital humanities, sound studies, social networking and web activism.

Hip-hop American opens KU's University Theater Season

My new improvised solo show Hip-hop American opened the Univresity of Kansas Department of Theatre's 2011-2012 season. The show was sold out with standing room only. The show won "best of fringe" status at The Kansas City Fringe Festival, Summer 2011. Thanks to everyone that came to the fringe and KU show. Hip-hop American is en route to several universities in Spring 2012. If everything works out, I will take the show to the Edinburgh Fringe Festival this summer. Here are a few links to the press:
http://www2.ku.edu/~kunews/cgi-bin/hiphopamerican
Fringe Festival:
http://www.kcfringe.org/2011/artist.php?ID=183
More soon- Nicole

Article on My Hip-hop Course in The Daily Kansan

I have been swamped with writing and performance stuff lately extremely busy, so I have not posted in some time. I plan to back date a few so that you can see what I have been up to over the past few months. I wanted to share this piece that ran in the Daily Kansan on me this week. The writer is a very promising journalist that does a great deal of social activism in the United States and Africa. Here is the link:

http://www.kansan.com/news/2011/jun/29/professor/


I will also post links to my article in the new Jay-Z book and another on Suzan-Lori Parks. I am excited about my forthcoming book on Hip-hop Performance and will announce the press by the fall. I have a post coming about my forthcoming show at the Kansas City Fringe Festival July 21-31. More soon- NHP

Featuring Life Art Music-An Independent Study Project with my KU Students

This semester I created an independent study with my students Rod Harris and Alan Ginsberg, two seniors at KU. I challenged them to create a web series and this is the first episode. Rod Harris is a theater major who is a rapper, actor and producer. Alan Ginsberg, a business major is a director and photographer and marketing person. The class asks the students to create a working production process to achieve their goals in entertainment. Enjoy this amazing episode that they produced in less than 2 weeks. If you believe it, you can achieve it.
Life Art Music- Episode 1.
For more information visit www.lifeartmusic.com

Hip-hop and Suzan-Lori Parks

Just wanted to update you about a new publication. I have the great pleasure of being in a fantastic scholarly company in a new volume on Suzan-Lori Parks entitled Suzan-Lori Parks: Essays on the Plays and Other Works edited by Philip Kolin, published by McFarland, 2010. My piece "Sampling and Remixing: Hip-hop and Parks's History Plays" uses Hip-hop to read Parks's history plays The America Play

and The Death of the Last Black Man in the Whole Entire World. Here's what scholars are syaing about this publication:

"Comprehensive...consider[s] the eclectic and prolific Parks with careful detail and fresh insight; an important new study." --Harry J. Elam, Jr., Stanford University

"Parks emerges from these pages as the national mythmaker, the unbounded intellect, and the fearless visionary she is." --Una Chaudhuri, New York University

"A most effective presentation of the depth, breadth, and diversity of Parks's writings¦one of America's most influential playwrights of this century." --Sandra G. Shannon, Howard University

Check it out on amazon here.
More soon- NHP

Hi Everyone: I am headed to Texas to present a paper at the American Studies Association National Conference. This should be a very exciting year at ASA. My panel is entitled Pro Forma: Balancing Vested Interests of Blackness in Performance and includes papers by Anne Dotter (KU), Deborah Najor (USC) and myself. My paper,entitled "Chitlin and Caviar Binaries: Tyler Perry and the Building of a Folk Play Empire," discusses the impact Tyler Perry has had on African American theater and performance. My friend Imani K. Johnson from NYU is chairing the panel and should have some great commentary for us all.

The panel and paper titles are listed below. I will post commentary and papers after the conference. Have a great weekend-NHP


Pro Forma: Balancing Vested Interests of Blackness in Performance
San Antonio Convention Center: Room 206A

CHAIR:
Imani K. Johnson, New York University (NY)
PARTICIPANTS:
Deborah Najor Alkamano, University of Southern California (CA)
Iraq Is Not the New Black: Racial Acrobatics and Ethnic Narcissism
Anne Dotter, University of Kansas (KS)
America Pro Forma: Performing America in Translation
Nicole Hodges Persley, University of Kansas (KS)
Chitlin' and Caviar Binaries: Tyler Perry's Remixing of a Folk Play Empire