Formulations:
Interdisciplinarity and Knowledge Production in
Ethnic Studies
[Theories of Ethnic Studies]
Ethnic Studies 200B Ross Frank
Winter 2014 Office: SSB 227
Tuesday 1:00 – 3:50PM, SSB 103 Phone: 534-6646
rfrank@ucsd.edu
Course
Description:
The Department of Ethnic StudiesÕ Vision
Statement calls for our engagement in Òthe fundamental theoretical and political questions regarding the critical
conceptualization of social categories, particularly race, indigeneity,
culture, ethnicity, gender, sexuality, class, and nation.Ó This class focuses on how to rethink these
questions in a comparative, relational, and interdisciplinary fashion; an epistemology that concerns itself with disciplinarity, representation, and knowledge production.
Moving away from the invisibility-to-visibility model, which structures
visibility as the penultimate goal, our task calls attention to the ÒminorityÓ
as unstable, unrepresentable, and unbelonging
subjects who make transparent and thus destabilize the ideological investments
of institutionally sanctioned disciplines. The course uses model studies
to explore how comparative and relational problems are posed as research
projects, how research questions are constructed, and how they employ theory to
frame the project and to establish what is at stake in the research.
Organization:
Weekly seminar assignments:
1. Discussion: attendance and active participation in the group discussions of the reading during the seminar meetings.
2. Response: beginning Week 2, each week you are not presenting post a 600-900 word (2-3 page) response to the weekÕs reading to the TED blog by 8PM Monday evening. Read the posted responses after 8PM Monday evening.;
3. Presentation: co-lead two seminar discussions during the quarter;
4. Synthesis: write two 4-5 page papers each covering the assigned reading for a week in which you presented. Synthesis papers are due at the beginning of class the week after your presentation and allow you to reflect on the seminar discussion and previous readings;
5. Journal: an assignment in reading and analyzing Journals of use to Ethnic Studies scholarship (each person will present once (15 minutes), instructions distributed separately);
6. Job Talks & Colloquium: jointly lead a brief discussion about a selected presenter in the seminar following the presentation.
Guidelines
for Response Papers and Seminar Presentations
For each weekÕs reading, your response or presentation, and discussion should focus on how book-length studies generate and structure new knowledge relevant to Ethnic Studies. We are seeking to understand how others formulate their ideas into published research of significance to Ethnic Studies to help to think about how to crafting our own projects.
¥ How are comparative and relational
problems posed as research projects?
¥ What are the research questions and how
are they constructed?
¥ How does the work employ theory to frame
the project?
¥ How does the work employ theory to
establish what is at stake?
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.
Lisa Cacho. Social Death: Racialized Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the Unprotected. New York: New York University Press, 2012.
Fatima El-Tayeb. European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational
Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2011.
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. *
Dayo Gore. Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the
Cold War. New York:
New York University Press, 2012.
Ann McClintock. Imperial
Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. London: Routledge, 1995. *
Denise Silva. Toward a Global Idea of Race. University of
Minnesota Press, 2007. *
Diana Taylor. The
Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas.
Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
*readings from the Ethnic Studies Graduate Reading List
The Journey:
Assigned books available at UCSD Bookstore.
Week 1 — January 7: Introduction to the course
Week 2 — January 14: Marks and Traces: The Methodology of Haunting
Avery Gordon. Ghostly Matters :
Haunting and the Sociological Imagination. Minneapolis: University of
Minnesota Press, 1997.
Week 3 — January 21: Hegemony, Neoliberalism, and the State
Lisa Cacho. Social Death: Racialized
Rightlessness and the Criminalization of the
Unprotected. New York: New York University
Press, 2012.
Week 4 — January 28: The Postcolonial: Feminism, Marxism, and Psychoanalysis
Ann McClintock. Imperial
Leather: Race, Gender and Sexuality in the Colonial Contest. London: Routledge, 1995.
Week 5 — February 4: Queering Sociology: Queer of Color and the Critique of Liberal Capitalism
Roderick Ferguson. Aberrations in Black: Toward a Queer of
Color Critique. Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2004.
Week 6 — February 11: Historical Narrative, Race, and Ideology
Dayo Gore. Radicalism at the Crossroads: African American Women Activists in the
Cold War. New
York: New York University Press, 2012.
Week 7 — February 18: Media and Culture: Racialization and the Old World
Fatima El-Tayeb. European Others: Queering Ethnicity in Postnational Europe. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2011.
Week 8 — February 25: Performance Studies: The Archive and the Repertoire
Diana Taylor. The Archive and the Repertoire: Performing Cultural Memory in the Americas. Durham: Duke University Press, 2003.
Week 9 — March 4: Indigenous Studies and Ethnic Studies
Jodi A.
Byrd. Transit of Empire: Indigenous Critiques of Colonialism. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota
Press, 2011.
Week 10 — March 11: Racial Knowledge: The ÒRacialÓ in Post-Enlightenment Conditions
Denise Silva. Toward a Global Idea of Race.
Minneapolis: University
of Minnesota Press, 2007.
© 2014, Ross Frank