Global Hip Hop and Civics EducationSenegalese rapper Xuman (above) will be featured as a panelist and performer at the event

Registration for educators extended to April 3!

On April 6th, Rutgers University will host “Global Hip Hop and Civics Education,” a day-long workshop for K-12 educators, Rutgers students and faculty, and artists and community leaders throughout our region. The workshop highlights Hip Hop's role in provoking civic engagement and global citizenship from a broad variety of perspectives, and offers strategies that help educators link musical modes of learning to the project of cultivating civically engaged students. Participants will learn strategies for promoting the educational values of orality, storytelling, multilingualism, and community engagement through a Global Hip Hop framework, along with perspectives on youth movements and practices throughout the world. The event will run from 9:30AM to 5:30PM and will feature panels and collaborative sessions, as well as keynotes by Dr. Lauren Leigh Kelly (School of Education) and Dr. Marjoris Regus (School of Music).All attendees will be given access to an online packet that includes pedagogical strategies, unit designs, in-class exercises and assignments to promote global civic engagement through hip hop frameworks. 

Our focus is on the potentials of Hip Hop poetics for exploring the complexities of people of color in the World and their gendered local and global racial diversities. The workshop will show how NJ Youth from multi-ethnic backgrounds can produce Hip Hop musical, dance, literary and visual poetics to address the complexity of their Americanness in ways that need to be tackled in our K-12 curricula. We are eager to connect with teachers, scholars, and community leaders across subjects and education levels who are interested in using Hip Hop to help students think globally, and we emphasize modes of collaborative student-led learning and deep musical engagement. 

On behalf of the Department of African, Middle Eastern, and South Asian Languages and Literatures, along with the School of Arts and Sciences, the Center for African Studies, Rutgers Global, and Mason Gross School of the Arts, we hope you will join us for this impactful event!

Special Thanks: 

Michele Frishberg (AMESALL Program Coordinator), Sandy Botros (AMEASALL), Martine Adams (CAS Program Coordinator) and Kathryn Neal (Business Specialist, SAS Humanities), Genese Sodikoff (CAS, Director), Daniel Da Silva (Spanish and Portuguese and YoL), Barbara Cooper (History), Baba Badji (Dept of French, English and Comparative Lit), Maria Kennedy (American Studies), Jefferson Decker (American Studies), Amanda Eubanks Winkler (Chair, Music, MGS), Nancy Rao, Lauren Leigh Kelly (GSE), Marjoris Regus (Music, MSG), Rick Garfunkel (Vice President RU Global), Bola Ibrahim (RU Global Account), Paulina Barrios (Comp Lit), Jim Masschaele (SAS Executive Vice Dean), Rebecca Walkowitz (SAS Humanities Dean), Kareem Mumford (SAS Executive Director Communication), Ian Defalco (SAS Media), Sharon Bzostek (Senior Associate Dean for Undergraduate Education),  Samah Selim (Interim Chair, AMESALL), Alamin Mazrui (AMESALL).