Communications Core program coordinator Nielson presents at national conference

January 2, 2012

Dr. Erik Nielson, program coordinator of the School of Professional & Continuing Studies communications core and assistant professor of liberal arts, presented a paper at the Annual Conference of the National Women’s Studies Association. The conference was held November 11-12, in Atlanta, Georgia.

The paper is based on a chapter Nielson wrote for an upcoming anthology titled Mothering and Hip Hop Culture, which will be published by Demeter Press in spring 2012. According to materials provided by the publisher, the anthology collects essays that cover three overarching themes: “representations of motherhood in rap, feminist analyses of mothering in hip-hop, and experiential reflections on mothering in the process of artistic production.”

Nielson’s essay “The Mother Figure and Rap Music’s Hidden Feminist Discourse” joins contributors Travis Gosa (Cornell University) and Nicholas Powers (City College of New York) in identifying and analyzing the trend of “Dear Mama” tributes among male rappers.

Nielson’s presentation was part of a panel comprised of other contributors to the upcoming anthology. The anthology is edited by Maki Motapanyane, assistant professor of Women’s Studies at Saint Lewis University.