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We are no longer accepting reservations due to the overwhelming response for this event.

We will release reserved seats 10 minutes before the program begins if registered attendees have not yet arrived.

Call 312.412.5580 for more information.

Journalists Natalie Hopkinson and Natalie Moore will explore various expressions of Black male masculinity in the hip-hop generation through the figure of "Tyrone" from Erykah Badu’s 1997 hit song. For the authors, "Tyrone" represents Black men as they are seen in the media, through stereotypes, as well as from the perspective of Black women. In eleven chapters, Moore and Hopkinson discuss subjects like Etan Thomas, an NBA basketball player and political poet; Detroit Mayor Kwame Kilpatrick known as the "Hip-Hop Mayor;" the complicated relationship between women and hip-hop culture; and gay Black men on the so-called "down low."

Through rich insights into a diverse range of perspectives and experiences, Moore and Hopkinson complicate dominant images of Black men as violent and hypersexualized and open up the complex topic of Black male masculinity for a lively public discussion.

Copies of Deconstructing Tyrone: A New Look at Black Masculinity in the Hip-Hop Generation will be available for purchase at the event or you may purchase the book on-line through BarnesandNoble.com.

More About the Authors:

Natalie Y. Moore is a freelance journalist who has worked for the St. Paul Pioneer Press, the Detroit News, and the Associated Press. Her work has appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the Chicago Reporter, Bitch Magazine, Black Enterprise, and In These Times. She is a graduate of Howard University, has a Master’s degree from Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism, and is an adjunct instructor of media studies at Columbia College.

A graduate of Howard University, Natalie Hopkinson is a staff writer at the Washington Post and a Scripps Howard doctoral fellow at the University of Maryland, where she is also a visiting professor of journalism.

The Center for the Study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago and the Institute for the Study of Women and Gender in the Arts and Media at Columbia College Chicago are co-sponsors for this event.

This event is part of the "Know More: Conversations that Matter" series."Know More"is designed to bridge the gap between the arts and social issues that are of current concern to Chicago’s Englewood community. Programming has included visits from hip hop artists, activists, and scholars Jeff Chang, David Stovall, and Lavie Raven; Africana Studies scholar William Santiago Valles; performer Will Power; and poet Elizabeth Alexander.

For more more information, call 312.422.5580.