Communication 430 - Stories of Race in the US

From film scripts to news reports, across memoirs, policy narratives, and mythologies of the nation, stories of race abound in the United States. This course examines the power of stories, a prevalent and familiar mode of communication, in constructing racialized people and communities and shaping racial histories and cultures in the US. Drawing on insights from critical race, ethnic, postcolonial, feminist, and queer studies, we explore the power of stories of race in defining and controlling racialized populations?from the erasure of indigenous people in settler-colonial discourses to the persistence of anti-Black racisms, the reemergence of ultra-Right White supremacist formations, and the racialization of the COVID-19 pandemic. Equally, we consider how Black, indigenous, and people of color engage in storytelling practices themselves, and the power of these counter-stories in disturbing and disrupting the power of dominant stories of race in the US. Incorporating primary texts from a range of genres?autobiography, fiction, sci-fi, news reports, film, TV, digital media, policy reports, court decisions?the course explores the power of stories of race to harm, imperil, and kill as well as to humanize, nurture, and celebrate.

Open to Senior and Junior Communication majors only. This course was formerly numbered as 497SR. If you have already taken 497SR, you cannot take this course.