U Ideas of General Interest — February 2001University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Contact: Andrea Lynn, Humanities/Social Science Editor (217) 333 -2177; [email protected]
CULTURAL ICONSOprah is course focus and jumping off point for study of race issues
CHAMPAIGN, Ill. — She seems to be everywhere – in magazines, on television, the silver screen, the Internet. She also seems to own everything – her own television show, cable TV network, entertainment group, magazine, book club. And now she has yet another venue: the college classroom.
Oprah Winfrey, the empowerment queen, business tycoon and cultural icon, is the subject of a new course at the University of Illinois. History 298, titled "Oprah Winfrey, The Tycoon," is taught by Juliet E.K. Walker, a history professor and a specialist on black business history in the United States. Walker’s course is believed to be the first of its kind in higher education in the United States.
The main thrust, Walker said, is to examine and analyze within the context of many social, cultural and economic factors how Winfrey – whose talk show is seen in 99 percent of U.S. markets and is picked up in 119 countries – built her empire. By 2000, she had emerged as one of the nation’s 400 wealthiest people and as the richest black person in America. She also has been hailed as one of the 100 most important people of the last century. Newsweek magazine recently proclaimed this "The Age of Oprah." Winfrey is a phenomenon, a modern-day Horatio Alger, up from roots in poorest America. According to Walker, Winfrey also reflects "the extent to which the celebrity, as a phenomenon in American life and culture, has a voice as influential as other ideological, societal and political institutions in impacting the global economy and transnational social and cultural practices."
Walker’s students have their work cut out for them. In addition to a heavy load of scholarly readings, they will critique Oprah’s magazine, Web site and TV show. They also will write critical review essays and a long research paper. In addition, while the focus is on Oprah’s success as an entertainer and entrepreneur, the students will consider the other side of the coin, so to speak.
Indeed, the ultimate questions that will emerge from the class at first may surprise the students: Why is it, after almost four centuries of black business participation in the United States, that so few blacks have achieved enormous wealth? Why is it that business receipts for blacks, who make up 13 percent of this nation’s population, amount to only 1 percent of the nation’s business receipts? Why is it that in the various occupational categories in which blacks participate in the nation’s economy, that black entertainers and sports figures are the highest paid, and "what does this say about race, class, gender and hegemonic masculinities in America at the turn of the new century?"
Walker hopes the experimental research and writing seminar will help her students broaden their perspectives on the black historical experience, "which traditionally focuses on the political and social history of blacks. It is important that the economic life of black America – with its long tradition of economic self-help – not be ignored in the historical reconstruction of the African American experience. Otherwise, that history remains not only incomplete but also distorted."
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