Computer Writing and Research Lab | University of Texas at Austin

  1. Register
  2. Login
  3. Contribute
  4. Our Blogs

"Ah ha, hush that fuss"

Submitted by jeremydean on October 11, 2006 - 3:01pm.

Thought this article on Rosa Parks and copyright might be useful to those teaching Lessig this semester. It’s basically just a background of the debate over the ownsership of her image, so you'd probably have to do more research for a lesson plan, but it could might generate some conversation on its own. What I found most interesting is the fact that the marketing of Parks as an icon was an issue from the start--as a rallying point for the boycott and the Civil Rights Movement more broadly--rather than something Outkast started. Lastly, I would be interested to know how we might defend our own desire for a good groove against copyright litigation or the demand for political correctness. Can Big Boi's own rallying cry be just an innocent non sequitor: "Ah ha, hush that fuss / Everybody move to the back of the bus!" Or might we interpret the block party of the "Rosa Parks" video as a public demonstration in the tradition of Birmingham?

» jeremydean's blog | login or register to post comments | printer friendly version | 1204 reads

Interesting article. Thanks

Submitted by dsargent on October 12, 2006 - 2:50pm.

Interesting article. Thanks for posting the link.

DSargent
http://higheredchat.blogspot.com
http://bio.webbiographies.com/dsargent

» login or register to post comments

And the lesson plan ladies and gentlemen....

Submitted by fernheimer on February 20, 2007 - 2:31am.

Thanks Jeremy for posting these links. I used your ideas to run what ended up being a fairly successful class discussion of image, branding, and copyright. For those who are interested, the rough sketches can be found on my course home page. Basically, this lesson was part of a short unit on visual rhetoric and its power to shape culture. We opened with a viewing and then having a critical discussion of both the Dove Evolution billboard video and the mock paraody of it called Revolution, before students learned the basics of how to do Photoshop themselves. Then, students read parts of Lessig, watched the Outkast video for Rosa Parks, read about the Rosa Parks/Outkast controversy, looked at the lyrics and we discussed whether or not they thought there was a legitimate case and what Rosa Parks's image represents in American culture. We talked a lot about branding and the Insititute's attempt to re-make its own image by shifting terminology from RPI (which emphasizes its technical origins) to Rensselaer which is a gesture toward becoming the "new Ivy" that U.S. News and World report claims it is. Of course the name shift came about before the classification of "new Ivy", but the attempt to dissociate from the technical and the "Intsitute" and move more toward associations with a "university" yielded interesting class discussion. It was especially apt that the video mocking Outkast was taken down for copyright violation--another tie-in to Lessig.Thanks for pointing these out!

» login or register to post comments