Wikipedia:Wiki Ed/University of Missouri, Columbia/Black Sexual Politics (Fall 2021)

We position Stacey Patton’s provocative essay, “Who’s Afraid of Black Sexuality?” in The Chronicle of Higher Education, as a starting point for thinking through how silence about sex and pleasure has “left a gap in the classroom and in black studies scholarship.” While prominent black feminist scholars have illuminated histories of black women’s sexual violation under slavery and their counter-resistance, the culture of dissemblance in black communities to shield themselves from racism, and sexual ideologies that fueled Jim Crow legislation and lynching – few have said anything about “black sexual agency, pleasure and intimacy, or same-sex relationships.” Instead, black sexuality is exclusively positioned in relation to white violation, dehumanization and the larger project of positioning black folks as subhuman.

While this gap has been undertaken in the fields of black (queer) studies (E. Patrick Johnson, Robert Reid Pharr, Cathy Cohen) and queer of color critique (Rod Ferguson) alongside grassroots organizations such as ActUP, new scholarship in black sexuality studies suggests that “although the dynamics of respectability have evolved they are not any less insidious.” These new inquires reveal how respectability politics serves as a neo-colonialist measure in which respectability becomes a primary technique of power and knowledge, while suggesting how anti-respectability as a methodology can “carve new territories for Black and Gender Studies, respectively.”

As a class, we will approach this question by positioning politics of representation and respectability within the realm of popular culture, such as pornography studies, and other highly consumed forms of media. Furthermore, we will discuss themes of intramural policing, and other forms of oppression performed within (and outside) Black communities as ways to understand how respectability politics are martialed in the current public sphere.

Week 1
Welcome to your Wikipedia assignment's course timeline. This page guides you through the steps you'll need to complete for your Wikipedia assignment, with links to training modules and your classmates' work spaces.

Your course has been assigned a Wikipedia Expert. You can reach them through the Get Help button at the top of this page.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 1–5
 * Evaluating Wikipedia

Create an account and join this course page, using the enrollment link your instructor sent you. (Because of Wikipedia's technical restraints, you may receive a message that you cannot create an account. To resolve this, please try again off campus or the next day.)

Begin a blog about your experiences. You can use discussion questions to frame your entries, or reflect on the research and writing process. Create at least one blog entry each week during the Wikipedia assignment.

This week, everyone should have a Wikipedia account.

Week 2
Thinking about sources and plagiarism

Exercise
Choose a topic

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 6

What's a content gap?

Exercise
Add a citation

Finalize your topic / Find your sources

Week 5
Resource: Editing Wikipedia, pages 7–9

Biographies

Books

Films

History

LGBT+ Studies

Political Science

Sociology

Women's Studies

Everyone has begun writing their article drafts.

Week 6
Guiding framework

Thinking about Wikipedia

Every student has finished reviewing their assigned articles, making sure that every article has been reviewed.

Week 7
You probably have some feedback from other students and possibly other Wikipedians. Consider their suggestions, decide whether it makes your work more accurate and complete, and edit your draft to make those changes.

Resources:


 * Editing Wikipedia, pages 12 and 14
 * Reach out to your Wikipedia Expert if you have any questions.

Week 8
Now that you've improved your draft based on others' feedback, it's time to move your work live - to the &quot;mainspace.&quot;

Resource: Editing Wikipedia, page 13

Nominating your article for Did You Know

Exercise
Add links to your article

Now's the time to revisit your text and refine your work. You may do more research and find missing information; rewrite the lead section to represent all major points; reorganize the text to communicate the information better; or add images and other media.

Week 10
Continue to expand and improve your work, and format your article to match Wikipedia's tone and standards. Remember to contact your Wikipedia Expert at any time if you need further help!

Week 11
It's the final week to develop your article.


 * Read Editing Wikipedia page 15 to review a final check-list before completing your assignment.
 * Don't forget that you can ask for help from your Wikipedia Expert at any time!

Guiding questions

Week 12
Everyone should have finished all of the work they'll do on Wikipedia, and be ready for grading.

Week 14
Write a paper going beyond your Wikipedia article to advance your own ideas, arguments, and original research about your topic.