ETHN 200A — Departures:
A Genealogy of Critical Racial and Ethnic Studies
Ethnic
Studies 200A Ross
Frank
Fall 2012 Office: SSB 227
Tuesday 10:00 – 12:50PM, SSB 103 Phone: 534-6646
rfrank@ucsd.edu
Download PDF version of the syllabus.
Course Description
In this seminar we will trace a shift in the theorizing of racial subjection, which is marked by a move away from the understanding of racial subjugation as an effect of white/Europeans' negative reactions to the physical and mental (moral/cultural) traits of peoples of color. Through an analysis that seeks what cannot be immediately addressed by social scientific tools, we will explore the limits of the notions of cultural difference and racial difference deployed in sociological, anthropological, and other studies.
After teasing out that which is erased by mainstream disciplinary projects, we will consider how Ethnic Studies is carving a radical intellectual position from which to respond to the challenges that global configurations of power pose to those involved in the project of global (racial) justice. We will take interest in identifying the contributions and limitations of this line of critical interrogation, and will consider what political strategies may dissipate the cycle of dispossession, displacement, and death that, since the initial moment of conquest, has marked the trajectory of the "others of Europe."
Assigned books
NOTE: Please plan on purchasing or arranging for library copies.
Jodi A. Byrd. Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Yen Le Espiritu, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and Countries, University of California Press , 2003. *
Roderick Ferguson. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. University of Minnesota Press, 2004. *
Avery Gordon. Ghostly Matters : Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. *
Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo Mama's Disfunktional, Beacon Press, 1998.
Michael Omi, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994. *
Denise Silva. Toward a Global Idea of Race. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. *
Kamala Visweswaran. Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
*readings from the Ethnic Studies Graduate Reading List
Weekly seminar assignments:
1) Discussion: attendance and active participation in the group discussions of the weekly readings during the seminar meetings.
2) Response: beginning Week 2, each Sunday evening
you will post
a response (around 900 words/3 pages) to the assigned readings. Your response will help to focus seminar discussion and should:
(a) locate the ways in which a
comparative, interdisciplinary, and relational approach emerges from
disciplinary traditions and concerns
(b) identify the central
questions that each text aims to address
(c) pose at least 2 questions for
discussion in seminar
3) Presentation: lead two seminar discussions during the quarter during weeks 2-9;
4) Synthesis: write two 4-6 page response papers, each covering the assigned readings for a week in which you presented. Synthesis papers are due at the beginning of class the week after your presentation. Your paper should address:
• What are the central questions that each text aims to address?
• How is the text structured? Describe its theoretical framework, methodological approach(es), and its relation to (inter)disciplinary conventions.
• What kinds of evidence are used to support the text's central arguments, and is this evidence persuasive?
• What are the theoretical and practical implications of the work?
• How do the central formulations of the text relate to issues raised in previous discussions?
• Taken together, what are the opportunities and limitations of various comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality?
Evaluation: 50% class discussions and 50% responses, presentations and written work.
We will make this course as accessible as possible to students with disabilities or medical conditions that may affect any aspect of course assignments or participation. If you require any specific accommodations, please contact me as soon as possible.
Readings are marked in the syllabus according to the following:
E available
on the TED/webCT website
or by following the Stable URL through Roger.
Week 1 readings are also available at: http://dss.ucsd.edu/~rfrank
NOTE: Please do the readings prior to each week's meeting.
Week 1: October 2 Introduction - What is Ethnic Studies?
Please read the following for Week 1 seminar:
Gloria Bowles, Clara Sue Kidwell, Ron Takaki. "Ethnic Studies and Women's Studies at
UC/Berkeley: A Collective Interview." The Radical Teacher , 14 (December, 1979), pp. 12-18. E
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20709219
Evelyn Hu-DeHart,"The History, Development, and Future
of Ethnic Studies."
The Phi Delta Kappan,
75:1 (Sep., 1993), pp. 50-54. E
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20405023
Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences, "What kind of Social Sciences Shall We Now Build?" in Open the Social Sciences : Report of the Gulbenkian Commission on the Restructuring of the Social Sciences. Stanford, Calif.: Stanford University Press, 1996, 70-93. E
Gerald Vizenor, "Transethnic Anthropologism: Comparative Ethnic Studies at Berkeley."
Studies
in American Indian Literatures, Series 2, 7:4 (Winter 1995), pp. 3-8. E
http://www.jstor.org/stable/20736879
Joan Walsh, "As American as ethnic studies", Pacific News Service, Sept. 2, 1998. E
Vine Deloria, Jr., David E. Wilkins, "Racial and Ethnic Studies, Political Science, and Midwifery." Wicazo Sa Review,
14:2 (Autumn, 1999), pp. 67-76. EYen Le Espiritu. "Disciplines Unbound: Notes on
Sociology and Ethnic Studies."
Contemporary Sociology, 28:5 (Sep., 1999), 510-514. E
http://www.jstor.org/stable/2654984
Tommy Craggs, "Ethnic Warfare: A bitchy academic fight within SFSU's College of Ethnic Studies puts the future of the program in question." San Francisco Weekly, 1/26/2005. E
Gregory Rodriguez, "Academia's hidden crackpots: What kind of discipline would nurture a hatefilled academic such as fired professor Ward Churchill?" Los Angeles Times, July 30, 2007. E
Week 2: October 9 The move away...
Michael Omi, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States : From the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd ed. New York: Routledge, 1994. *
Robert Ezra Park. Chapters 9-12, 14-16. Race and Culture. Glencoe, Ill.: Free Press, 1950, 138-176, 189-220. E *
Stuart Hall, "Gramsci's Relevance for the Study of Race and Ethnicity," Journal of Communication Inquiry (1986) 10.2: 5-27. E *
Week 3: October 16 What cannot be immediately addressed...
Avery Gordon. Ghostly Matters : Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. *
Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy of History," Illuminations. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968, 253-264. E
Week 4: October 23 Historical departures
Robin D.G. Kelley, Yo Mama's Disfunktional! Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban America. Boston: Beacon Press, 1998.
Gunnar Myrdal, Richard Sterner, and Arnold Rose. Chapter 19: "American at the Crossroads," American Dilemma. Boston: Beacon Press, 1956 [1948], 312-321. E
Oliver C. Cox. "An American Dilemma: A Mystical Approach to the Study of Race Relations." The Journal of Negro Education 14.2 (1945): 132-148. E
Week 5: October 30 Sociological genealogies
Roderick Ferguson. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004. *
Nayan Shah. "Policing
Privacy, Migrants, and the Limits of Freedom." Social Text. 84-85 23:3-4
(2005): 275-284. E
http://socialtext.dukejournals.org/cgi/content/long/23/3-4_84-85/27
Week 6: November 6 Anthropological genealogies
Kamala Visweswaran. Fictions of Feminist Ethnography. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1994.
Ann Laura Stoler. "Rethinking Colonial Categories," Chapter 2 of Carnal Knowledge and Imperial Power: Race and the Intimate in Colonial Rule. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2002, 22-40. E
Week 7: November 13 Transnational departures
Yen Le Espiritu, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and Countries. Berkeley: University of California Press , 2003. *
Laura Briggs, Gladys
McCormick, and J.T. Way, "Transnationalism: A Category of Analysis", American Quarterly 60.3 (September
2008): 625-648. E
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v060/60.3.briggs.html
Andrea Smith, "American
Studies without America: Native Feminisms and the Nation-State," American Quarterly 60. 2 (June, 2008):
309-315 E
http://muse.jhu.edu/journals/american_quarterly/v060/60.2.smith01.html
Week 8: November 20 Global configurations of power
Jodi A. Byrd. Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2011.
Week 9: November 27 Others of Europe
Denise Silva. Toward a Global Idea of Race. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2007. *
Week 10: December 4 Summary - Journeys
© 2012, Ross Frank