The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation (TASF) is home to the Tupac Amaru Shakur Center for the Arts, just outside of Atlanta in Stone Mountain, Georgia. TASF was founded in 1997 originally as the Shakur Family Foundation by Afeni Shakur, mother of multi-talented Tupac Amaru Shakur. Since its inception TASF has offered performing arts camps, essay competitions, youth book clubs, visual arts workshops, community development projects, and scholarships to students pursuing undergraduate degrees.
On June 11, 2005 the TASF opened the Center! The Center is dedicated to providing youth and the community with educational programs in the arts. It is a fact that early arts education improves school grades, as well as offers invaluable life lessons while building self-esteem and confidence. For nearly 15 years, the Foundation’s programs have served youth of all social and economic backgrounds, giving countless young people the courage to get off the streets and learn vital skills that have the potential to positively impact their communities.
The Center is open to the public and hosts several noteworthy events throughout the year. The mission of TASF is to provide training and support for students who aspire to enhance their creative talents. Each and every child desires freedom to creatively express themselves. We provide an environment that encourages freedom of expression, serves as a resource for families, and empowers via education.
The Atlanta University Center Robert W. Woodruff Library and the Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation (TASF) present the Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection Conference: “Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination.” In the fifteen years since Shakur’s passing, the TASF has continued to cultivate the legacy and sociocultural impact of his life and works. As a part of this effort, the TASF and Shakur Estate partnered with the AUC-Woodruff Library to collect and curate the papers, letter, images and other archival materials of the hip hop artist. In 2011, the Tupac Amaru Shakur Collection, housed at the Library, was opened to the public to promote scholarship and research of a multi-dimensional artist who helped define a musical genre.
To commemorate the opening of the historic collection, this two-day academic conference will convene scholars, educators, and students to present papers on themes related to the life and works of Tupac Shakur, education and Hip hop culture more broadly. The following are some suggested (but not required) sub-topics:
- Tupac and education, pedagogy, and/or epistemology
- Hip Hop in college curriculum
- Hip Hop Studies and authorship (i.e., who counts as an author?)
- What counts as an archive? How do we preserve Hip Hop culture?
- Hip Hop as literary genre (autobiography, drama, poetry, etc.)
- Hip Hop as history
- Hip Hop and information literacy
- Scholar Advocacy for Hip hop archives
- Archivists as partners in teaching, learning and scholarship of Hip Hop Studies
Submission of Paper abstracts should be approximately 300 words. Panel proposals (of either 3 or 4 papers per panel) should be approximately 500 words. All proposals should address the themes of this year’s conference (Hip Hop, Education, and Expanding the Archival Imagination) and include the presenter’s institutional affiliations, a 50-word biography, and appropriate email address and phone number. Please email all proposals to ShakurConference@auctr.edu by April 23, 2012. Accepted papers and panels will be announced June 15, 2012, and the conference will take place on September 28-29, 2012 in Atlanta, Georgia.
To learn more about The Tupac Amaru Shakur Foundation visit www.tasf.org.
