ETHN
200A — Departures:
A Genealogy of Critical Racial and Ethnic Studies
Ethnic
Studies 200A Ross
Frank
Fall 2009 Office: SSB 227
Wednesday 10:00 – 12:50PM, SSB
253 Phone: 534-6646
rfrank@weber.ucsd.edu
Course materials available at: http://dss.ucsd.edu/~rfrank
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)
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 and anthropological
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 more
importantly, we 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
Books
ordered and available at Groundwork Books:
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. *
Andrea Smith, Conquest : Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005. *
Lisa Yoneyama. Hiroshima Traces : Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999.
*readings from the Ethnic
Studies Graduate Reading List
Organization
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 Monday evening
you will mail
to everyone in the class a response (around 900 words/3 pages) to the assigned
readings. Your response should:
(a) identify the main concepts or formulation of the text(s)
(b) relate these to points raised in the previous discussions
(c) pose 3 questions for discussion
in seminar
3) Presentation: lead two seminar discussions during the
quarter during weeks 3-8;
4) Synthesis: write two 4-5 page response papers,
each covering the assigned readings for a week in which you presented. Response papers are due at the
beginning of class the week after your presentation;
5) Colloquium: we will discuss the content and
presentation of each colloquium in during the seminar following.
Evaluation:
50% class discussions and
50% presentations and written work.
In your presentations and response papers, do not merely summarize the author(s)Õs arguments, but instead critically reflect on the main arguments of the text in relation to the work done do far in the seminar. What are the opportunities and limitations of various comparative and interdisciplinary approaches to the study of race, ethnicity, gender, and sexuality? How do they emerge from and form in reaction to disciplinary modes of study? How do they work to define projects of global (racial) justice?
Syllabus
Readings are marked in the syllabus according to the following:
G available at
Groundwork Bookstore.
W available
on course website: http://weber.ucsd.edu/~rfrank
NOTE:
Please do the readings prior to each weekÕs meeting.
Please
read the following for the Week 1
seminar:
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. W
Yen Le
Espiritu. "Disciplines Unbound: Notes on Sociology and Ethnic
Studies." Contemporary Sociology
28.5 (1999): 510-514. W
Joan Walsh,
"As American as ethnic studies," Pacific News Service, Sept.
2, 1998. W
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. W
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. W
Avery Gordon. Ghostly Matters : Haunting and the Sociological Imagination.
Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1997. G *
Walter Benjamin, "Theses on the Philosophy
of History," Illuminations. New York, Harcourt, Brace & World, 1968, 253-264.
Andrea Smith, Conquest : Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide. Cambridge, MA: South End Press, 2005. G *
Franz Fanon, "Concerning Violence" and
"The Pitfalls of National Consciousness," The
Wretched of the Earth. New
York, Grove Press, 1963, 35-106, 148-205.
W
Michael Omi, and Howard Winant. Racial Formation in the United States : From
the 1960s to the 1990s. 2nd
ed. New York: Routledge, 1994. G *
Robert
Ezra Park. Chapters 9-12, 14-16. Race and Culture. Glencoe, Ill.: Free
Press, 1950, 138-176, 189-220. W *
Robin
D.G. Kelley, Yo Mama's Disfunktional!
Fighting the Culture Wars in Urban
America. Beacon Press, 1998. G
Gunnar Myrdal, Richard
Sterner, and Arnold Rose. "Chapter
19: American at the Crossroads," American Dilemma. Boston, Beacon Press,
1956 [1948], 312-321. W
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.
W
Oliver C. Cox. "Chapter 21:
The New Orthodoxy in Theories of Race Relations," Caste, Class, & Race; A Study In Social Dynamics.
New York, Monthly Review Press, 1959, 462-488.
W
Roderick Ferguson. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of Color Critique. University
of Minnesota Press, 2004. G *
Yen Le Espiritu, Home Bound: Filipino American Lives across Cultures, Communities, and
Countries , University of California Press , 2003. G
*
Lisa Yoneyama. Hiroshima Traces : Time, Space, and the Dialectics of Memory. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1999. G
Denise Silva. Toward a
Global Idea of Race. University of Minnesota Press, 2007. G
*
Week 10: December 2 Summary - Journeys