Interdepartmental 102 - Thinking Through Race

This course offers an interdisciplinary, historical, and critical examination of race in the United States. Although race is no longer held by scientists to have any biological reality, it has played a central role in the formation of legal codes, definitions of citizenship, economics, culture, and identities. Where did the concept of race come from? How has it changed over time? What pressures does it continue to exert on our lives? By bringing together faculty from a variety of programs and disciplines, and by looking at a range of cultural texts where racial distinctions and identities have been constructed and contested, we hope to give students an understanding of how and why race matters. S/U only.