If students enrolled in Georgia Roberts鈥� fall quarter class expect two hours of celebrity worship every Friday afternoon, they鈥檝e got another thing coming.
鈥淭he Textual Appeal of Tupac Shakur鈥� will be a serious and challenging class, according to the graduate student in English. Students will read from a variety of difficult texts, including Sun Tzu鈥檚 The Art of War, Machiavelli鈥檚 The Prince, and Frantz Fanon鈥檚 Wretched of the Earth. And they鈥檒l get there from lyrics penned by the late hip-hop artist Tupac Shakur.
鈥淚t鈥檚 about focal point,鈥� Roberts said. 鈥淚f you appeal to students from things that they want to talk about you can sort of expand out. It鈥檚 not even fooling them. It鈥檚 just being able to have a dialogue with students through something they鈥檙e already talking about and interested in.鈥�
And so is Roberts. A Tupac fan since age 16, she says she read Machiavelli and other lofty texts because of her affinity for the enigmatic artist. She鈥檚 hoping to make similar connections for the 20 or so students signed up for the course offered as a 鈥渇ocus group鈥� by the Program in the Comparative History of Ideas, where Roberts works as a graduate teaching assistant.
Consider Christopher Marlowe鈥檚 classic play The Tragical History of Dr. Faustus. The main character, in his quest for knowledge, sells his soul to the devil. That theme, Roberts says, is apparent in many of Tupac鈥檚 lyrics.
His work also makes reference to Machiavelli. Tupac, who reportedly studied the works of the Renaissance philosopher while serving a jail sentence, produced an album that was released after his violent death under the alias Makaveli. Music fans have suggested the album is an indication that Tupac faked his own death and will resurrect himself after a period of time. Roberts expects the course will enlighten some of those fans.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 have all the answers, but my hope is that when we read The Prince students will say, 鈥極h, this isn鈥檛 just about Tupac faking his own death. This is about some deeper things about what it means to be in power and how people can maneuver and manipulate power to their own ends.鈥� 鈥�
The strategy is a good one, according to John Toews, chair of the CHID program.
鈥淲hat she wants to do is take students鈥� connection to this hip-hop poet and make that resonate in a broader way,鈥� he said. 鈥淭hat鈥檚 a great pedagogical device. In some ways every teacher tries to do that. You want to hook students into issues and then get them interested in other things as well.鈥�
Roberts isn鈥檛 required to teach the focus group and she doesn鈥檛 earn any extra money. The students will get two general credit hours if they participate in the class and complete a final project by the end of the quarter. But the payoff for Roberts and the students has more to do with a love of learning.
That was the basis for CHID setting up the focus groups in the first place.
鈥淲e let people organize basically spontaneous reading groups around topics that people are interested in, but it鈥檚 not quite reached the quality of a class,鈥� Toews said. 鈥淲e set up these focus groups to make a kind of opening to curriculum creativity from below. It works pretty well that way, I think.鈥�
It works well for Roberts too. She gets the experience of developing her own course from the ground level. It鈥檚 experience that鈥檚 bound to help her down the road. After she completes her doctorate, she hopes to continue her studies both in literature and popular culture.
鈥淩eally, I just see myself wanting to follow my intellectual gut and the things that interest me,鈥� she said. 鈥淚t seems like opportunities and doors have opened so far because of that. One thing I learned as an undergraduate was that in order to sustain an energy, to keep this kind of academic work going you have to be interested in what you鈥檙e studying. It has to be the stuff that, when on Friday night your girlfriends are out partying, you鈥檙e in the library or Barnes and Noble looking at these books.鈥�
Or in this case, hip-hop lyrics.