Battle Battle: Engaging Diversity in the American Liberal Arts College. (February 2020)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Lu, Joyce
• Is Part Of: Arts and humanities in higher education. Volume 19:Number 1(2020)
• Page Start: 101
• Page End: 112
• Publication Date: 2020-02
• Subjects: Hip-hop -- higher education -- diversity -- Asian American -- African American -- theater education; Arts -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Periodicals; Humanities -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- Periodicals; 700.711
• DOI: 10.1177/1474022218757893
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1474-0222

Abstract

Battle Battle: Engaging Diversity in the American Liberal Arts College examines the production of an Asian American hip-hop musical, directed by the author, at a private liberal arts college in the US. This article demonstrates how the production process was determined by the complex history of racial formation and relations in America. Those who were extremely attached to standardized Eurocentric practices of control in education could only read this complexity as disorder and found the process to be out of control or anarchic. The author claims, however, that the process was necessarily anarchic insofar as the production was undertaken as a decolonizing project; an attempt to undermine structures of domination and employ an ethical and democratic way of working that directly conflicted with the violent constraints of White hegemony that are present in elite educational institutions.