Politics 309 - How to Think About Race and Politics in the U.S.

We examine logical implications of the view of "race" as a social construction. Constructionism's core point is that there are no naturally occurring subdivisions between the level of our species, Homo sapiens sapiens, and local breeding populations, and therefore that "racism" is at bottom belief that such intermediate groupings exist -- whether or not one embraces assumptions regarding their relation to one another in hierarchies of worth or capacities. We will interrogate conceptual elisions that mark thinking about race among scholars and civic actors -- between categories v. groups, race as category of analysis v. category of practice, relative v. absolute inequality, race v. class -- by tracing them within flash points in American political history from emergence of the modern view of race to the present moment.

This course is open to juniors and seniors