“Ugly” explores literary and other (e.g., cinematic, musical, visual) forms of black cultural expression as representative of exquisite aesthetic productions that challenge Eurocentrically prescribed standards of beauty and ugliness that have (in academic and pedestrian arenas) fomented ideologies that devalue the elegant, and, highly critical intellectual heft of said productions. This course will take a survey-style approach to examining a multimedia selection of black cultural productions by authors, artists, performers, and/or scholars such as (but not limited to) Cardi B, W.E.B. DuBois, clipping., Ryan Coogler, Frantz Fanon, Saidiya Hartman, Gayl Jones, Kendrick Lamar, Nathaniel Mackey, Fred Moten, Toni Morrison, Ousmane Sembène, Ntozake Shange, Rivers Solomon, Alice Walker, and, (our NSU Provost—AKA: expert in Afro-Futurism) Renée T. White.