From Hip Hop to Habermas and Back: On Cultural Forms and Cultural Imagination.

Hip-hop is a phenomenon that encompasses music, fashion, language, visual media, social mores, politics and much more. It is also a phenomenon with a wide and varied currency, a careful examination of which can tell us much about both culture and imagination. Drawing on concepts from cultural anthropology, cultural studies, and particularly the work of Jurgen Habermas, this presentation will offer some ideas about how cultural forms are created, how they move, and how they transform. It will also argue why it might be important for teachers and academics to pay attention to such emergent and shifting forms of culture.

About Michael:

Michael Ling is a Senior Lecturer in the Faculty of Education with a background in cultural anthropology. He has an abiding interest in how people make their lives meaningful through creative cultural expressions, along with how such expressions circulate and are transformed through experimentation and innovation. He works primarily in the Fine Arts Diploma stream of Field Programs, the Masters of Education in Educational Practice, and in the Community-based Masters of Education Program.