Course inspired by Tyler Perry’s legacy launched at Emory University

He’s turned his trials into triumphs and now students can learn all about it.

It’s a course that Tameka Cage Conley, an assistant professor of English and creative writing at Oxford College of Emory University, created out of her love and appreciation for Tyler Perry. Launched in August, “In the Language of Folk and Kin: The Legacy of Folklore, the Griot and Community in the Artistic Praxis of Tyler Perry” is a course where students evaluate Perry’s movies, television shows and noteworthy speeches. The course also explores the literary work of Black authors like Paul Laurence Dunbar, Zora Neale Hurston and Ntozake Shange. This is a big deal because this is the first college course in the country that focuses on Perry’s influence, work and contributions to pop culture, while also shining the spotlight on important issues in the Black community.

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“Ultimately, I thought it was vital to recognize that Perry was telling the stories about aspects of our communities that are usually ignored and people who are often ignored,” Conley said. Once Conley came up with the idea to highlight Perry’s work, she pitched the idea of the class to Douglas Hicks, who was the dean of Oxford College at the time (now the president of Davidson College in North Carolina) who approved the class for the upcoming fall semester. “I was thrilled because I knew that it was monumental,” Conley said.

Conley said her grandmother inspired the idea of the course. After her grandmother’s passing in June of last year, Conley started to think about the loss of her own family’s matriarch and how important the strong female figure is in Black families. If you know anything about Perry’s work, that is a central theme that is portrayed in his work – including through his “Madea” character. The Black matriarch has had an influence on Conley as well, as she says they “come from a community and come from a time that knows how to survive. And because they know how to survive, they can sustain us while they’re telling us to keep going.”

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Conley said she’s had interesting discussions with students from diverse backgrounds since starting the course. Conley and the students discuss topics like comparing Perry’s 2019 BET Ultimate Icon Award acceptance speech and analyzing Perry’s eulogy at Whitney Houston’s funeral in 2012 with elegies by Black poets like Nicole Sealey, Jericho Brown and Danez Smith.

While Conley’s class is currently only available for this fall semester, she hopes it can inspire students. “I want these young people to have a safe space to engage every element of who they are without feeling like they have to leave anything at the door,” Conley said. “They can bring their full selves to the classroom, as we sit at the table together. And so I thought that Tyler Perry is the person who enables me to be a conduit for them to feel safe.”