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Rickey Vincent the Educator

 

I've been teaching at the college level since 1993.  Jim Okutsu at SF State got me started teaching "Critical Thinking" courses for the Ethnic Studies Department while I was in the Master's Program there. After writing Funk in 1996, I started designing my own courses.  This has led to a wide range of teaching topics, methodologies, and memorable experiences.

 

Since 1997 I've been teaching courses on the "History of Funk" at Bay Area colleges: SF State, San Francisco City College since 2002, UC Berkeley since 2003. and California College of the Arts in Oakland since 2011.

 

The funk history class at CCSF and the summer session at UC Berkeley are open to the public every year. Each semester you can learn about James Brown, Sly Stone, George Clinton, Jimi Hendrix, and the great funk bands of the 70's, as well as the funk sounds of the 80's and Hip Hop phenomenon of the milennium. There are always, surprises, guests, and plenty of The Funk!

 

If you are interested in taking the class one of these sessions, check the UC Berkeley Summer Session page under African American Studies 159.  The CCSF Website features AFAM 55 every semester listed as, "From Funk to Hip Hop"

 

 

As part of my coursework in the Ethnic Studies Doctoral Program at UC Berkeley, I was given the opportunity to develop a course based on my research in Black Power and Popular Culture.  The course was titled: "Black Power and Popular Culture, 1965-1975."  I have been developing courses along these lines ever since.

 

Educational innovation is the cornerstone I believe of a pedagogy for the people.  It appears I have been down that path, and I'm proud to do so.

 

As a lecturer at UC Berkeley, I've taught classes on:

The U.S. Civil Rights Movement

African American Literature

African American Music and Culture, from Be-bop to Hip Hop 

"Civil Rights, Soul Music and Black Identity" 

"Narratives of Exclusion"

"The Anti-Apartheid Movement, Global and Local"

"Hip Hop and its Antecedents"

"Hip Hop and Global Resistance Cultures"

"The Black Panther Party and Popular Culture" ... and a number of others.  

 

 

 

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