Popular culture is an important site for creating, challenging, and transmitting meanings about race, gender and sexuality. What can we learn about race and gender using the lens of popular culture? In this course, we will examine how Black women construct and are constructed by popular culture in the U.S. by building a set of critical tools that can help us navigate this rich terrain. We will explore topics such as representations of Black femininity, Black sexuality and representation, stereotypes, and subversive media, over a wide range of popular culture artifacts. And we will consider the impact and meaning of Black women such as Beyoncé, Rihanna, Janelle Monaé, Michelle Obama, and Janet Mock.