In the spring semester of 2010 the Outreach Center put on a workshop looking at Hip Hop in the Middle East region and Africa, and this Online Resource is one of the culminations of that interdisciplinary academic inquiry. The workshop particularly focused on emergent global forms of Hip Hop culture that provide unique points of access into contemporary socio-cultural currents in the Middle East region. Some of the inspiration for this inquiry and initiative, which also comprised a Hip Hop performance on campus with Syrian-American artist Omar Offendum and a visit to a local High School by the Arabic Hip Hop Palestinian artists, DAM, is an appreciation for how contemporary art in general, and Hip Hop in particular, can generate unique learning opportunities about the Middle East region for students in America. There is a broad range of applications and uses of Hip Hop for secondary school courses including inquiries into contemporary issues and politics, youth culture and resistance narratives, race and gender politics, national [and trans-national] identity, globalization and media, literature and linguistics, and art and culture.

http://cmes.hmdc.harvard.edu/outreach/hiphopresource