SUNY Fredonia
Division of Arts and Humanities
HIST/INDS/WOST 220, ENGL 299: Introduction to Ethnicity/Race
Fall 2007
Section 1: Fenton 170, TTh 8-9:20
Office: Fenton 279; MW 10:30-12, TTh 9:30-11, and by appointment; 673-3125
E-mail: simon@fredonia.edu, brucesimon18@yahoo.com
Web Page: www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/
ANGEL space: https://angel.fredonia.edu/frames.aspx

About the Course Web Site

This web site is designed to help you get as much out of this course as possible--you can use it to find out how you will be graded, how to join and use the course ANGEL space, what reading and writing assignments are due and when, what books are on reserve for your use in Reed Library, and how to use the world-wide web for research. Please take the time over the weekend after the first week of classes to read this page carefully and to familiarize yourself with the other pages for this course. Please get in the habit of checking back to this web site to keep track of changes to the tentative schedule (see below) and to find advice on papers and projects, as well as to surf the ever-expanding list of links to interesting web pages related to the course. And please contact me any time (see above for my coordinates) if you have ideas about how to improve these pages or the course as a whole. I hope you enjoy taking this course as much as I enjoy teaching it!

I. Course Description

Interdisciplinary approach to race and ethnicity in the United States and other contemporary multiethnic/multiracial societies. This section is divided into three units--theories and histories, experiences and institutions, and fictions and futures--so that we may consider the stakes of conceiving of critical race/ethnicity studies as a comparative, transnational, and postcolonial field of inquiry. In the first unit, we survey theories of race and ethnicity and analyze several historical case studies in order to recognize and reexamine our own assumptions and habits of thinking. In the second unit, we consider both the processes and the experiences of racialization in order to flesh out the duality of race and ethnicity as social constructions and social facts. In the third unit, we theorize race and ethnicity as social fictions in order to explore possible futures.

This course is required in all Multiethnic Studies minors and can be used to fulfill the American Minorities requirement in History's Social Studies major and Part VI of the College Core Curriculum (CCC).

II. Rationale

In this course, students from a range of majors, minors, and concentrations interact, and the goals of the professional programs are integrated with specific course and general education goals. Achieving these goals (described in Section IV below) will require us to foster academic skills and intellectual habits of reading closely and carefully, thinking critically and creatively, listening actively and attentively, speaking thoughtfully and concisely, and writing clearly and analytically--skills and habits useful to everyone, but of particular importance to future teachers.

III. Textbooks. The textbooks adopted for this course are:

• John Dower, War Without Mercy: Race and Power in the Pacific War (Pantheon)
• W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn: An Essay toward an Autobiography of a Race Concept (Transaction)
• Joan Ferrante and Prince Brown, Jr., eds., The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States (2nd ed.) (Prentice Hall)
• Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange (Coffee House)

IV. Course Objectives and Outcomes.

This course has been approved for Part VI of the CCC. As such, it presents general ideas and principles basic to the field of study as well as an introduction to the major research methods in it, and facilitates improvement of student skills, including critical thinking and critical literacy. Specifically, students will be introduced to the major concepts, theories, models, and issues in the field; students will consider such methodological issues as what constitutes evidence, cause-effect relationships, formulating, measuring, and manipulating variables, formulating, operationalizing, and testing hypotheses, the history of the development of the field, contemporary thinking in the field, connections to related disciplines, and consideration of the way in which culture has influenced the development of the field; and students will develop their skills in interpreting findings, differentiating between empirical fact and opinion, considering the relationship between hypothesis and theory, evaluating logic and parsimony of arguments, exploring alternate interpretations of findings, questioning assumptions, and exploring new areas of inquiry. To achieve these goals, students will

• read, think about, and generate questions about the assigned texts;
• exchange and discuss their questions in the classroom and on the course ANGEL space;
• write, research, and revise an identification project that allows them to connect the assigned readings with their own ideas and experiences;
• research and write a final project that integrates what they have learned in the course.

V. Instructional Methods and Activities

The methods used in the classroom will include lecture, in-class writing, guided discovery, open discussion, cooperative group work, and other discussion-oriented activities.

VI. Evaluation and Grade Assignment

Attendance/Preparation/In-class Participation (15%). Regular attendance to and thoughtful participation in class are crucial to your enjoyment of and success in this course. If there is absolutely no way for you to avoid missing a class, you must contact me ahead of time or soon after your absence, preferably by email. Even more important than showing up on time, of course, is coming to class prepared and focused. I expect you to read what has been assigned for a given date at least once (and some texts preferably more than that!) by the time we begin to discuss it in class. This is a discussion rather than a lecture course, after all; although I will provide some context and background for our reading, the bulk of class time will be spent in small- or large-group discussions and activities. Since it's difficult to make good contributions to discussions about a text if you haven't read it carefully or thought about it extensively, how well you budget your time outside of class will to a large degree determine how well you do in this class in general and how well you do on this portion of your course grade in particular.

Your grade for this segment of the course will be based on a combination of your attendance, the quality of your participation in class and on the course ANGEL space (described below), and your preparation, effort, and improvement over the course of the semester. As there is no final exam in this course, think of my evaluation of your preparation/participation as a different but equally important method of assessing your overall performance in the course. Due to the importance of attendance and participation, more than two unexcused absences will hurt your preparation/participation grade and each non-emergency absence after the third will lower your final course grade by a full grade (e.g., with four absences a B+ will become a C+; with seven, it will become an E). Please see Section VIIIB, below, for definitions of excused and emergency absences.

Online Participation (20%). You have two options for online participation in this course--two ways, that is, of developing your writing and critical thinking skills, demonstrating your engagement with the course material, and considering and responding to others' ideas and experiences. You can focus your online participation on one of the options or use both. The first option comprises the discussion board on our course ANGEL space, which only the people enrolled in this class can read. Here are some ways you can participate on it:

• post a specific question about one of the readings--or respond to someone else's previously-posted question;
• pick up and develop a topic of conversation from our in-class discussions--or respond to someone else's previously-posted idea;
• share an insight from a small-group discussion or activity that those outside your team didn't have the chance to hear--or respond to someone else's previously-posted idea;
• introduce a new topic of conversation that you feel is relevant to the course--or respond to someone else's previously-posted topic.

Your other option for online participation is a more public one--becoming a co-author on a course blog, American Identities (http://amerids.blogspot.com/), that theoretically anyone could read.

Over the course of the semester, I will keep track of the timing, amount, and quality of your posts to the blog, including the quality of the ensuing online discussions initiated by them in comments on the post and responses by other bloggers. If you choose to focus exclusively on this option for online participation, 0 posts will earn you an F, 1 a D, 2 a C, 3 a B, and 4 or more an A on this segment of your final grade.

If you choose to combine the two options for online participation, you must meet with me to draw up a learning contract that details how your participation will be assessed. For further information on the online components of the course, including more specific requirements and extensive advice, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/ier2/op.htm.

Identification Project (30%). The Identification Project is designed to encourage self-awareness, self-reflection, and a critical engagement with the course material. It consists of an initial personal essay (due M 9/10/07) which you then revise into a longer experimental essay (due M 12/3/07), based on your responses to the readings, discussions, and online postings that have most influenced you through the first two units in the course. For detailed information and advice on the identification project, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/ier2/ip.htm.

Final Project (35%). For detailed information and advice on the final project, go to http://www.fredonia.edu/department/english/simon/ier2/fp.htm.

B. Grading. All work during the semester will be graded on a letter basis (A=outstanding, B=good, C=average, D=bad, F=awful) and converted into a number for purposes of calculating final grades. I use the following conversion system (the number in parentheses is the "typical" or "normal" conversion, but any number in the range may be assigned to a given letter grade):

A+=97-100 (98); A=93-96.99 (95); A-=90-92.99 (91); B+=87-89.99 (88); B=83-86.99 (85); B-=80-82.99 (81); C+=77-79.99 (78); C=73-76.99 (75); C-=70-72.99 (71); D+=67-69.99 (68); D=63-66.99 (65); D-=60-62.99 (61); F=0-59.99 (55)

Your final grade is determined by converting the weighted numerical average of the above assignments into a letter grade, according to the above scale.

VII. Bibliography. See the list of reserve readings for a fuller bibliography.

A. Contemporary References

• Theodore Allen, The Invention of the White Race
• Lee Baker, From Savage to Negro: Anthropology and the Construction of Race, 1896-1954
• Etienne Balibar and Immanuel Wallerstein, Race, Nation, Class: Ambiguous Identities
• Elazar Barkan, The Retreat of Scientific Racism: Changing Concepts of Race in Britain and the United States between the World Wars
• Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture
• Kum-Kum Bhavnani, ed., Feminism and "Race"
• Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller and Kendall Thomas, eds., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement
• F. James Davis, Who Is Black? One Nation's Definition
• Frank Dikotter, ed., The Construction of Racial Identities in China and Japan
• Richard Dyer, White
• Patrick Geary, The Myth of Nations: The Medieval Origins of Europe
• Paul Gilroy, Against Race
• David Goldberg, Racist Culture: Philosophy and the Politics of Meaning
• --, ed., Anatomy of Racism
• Avery Gordon and Christopher Newfield, eds., Mapping Multiculturalism
• Ivan Hannaford, Race: The History of an Idea in the West
• Sandra Harding, ed., The "Racial" Economy of Science
• Martha Hodes, ed., Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History
• Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race
• George Lipsitz, The Possessive Investment in Whiteness (rev. ed.)
• Ian F. Haney Lopez, White by Law
• Wahneema Lubiano, ed., The House That Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain
• Martin Marger, ed., Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives (6th ed.)
• Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat, eds., Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives
• Kenneth Mostern, Autobiography and Black Identity Politics: Racialization in Twentieth-Century America
• Joanne Nagel, Race, Ethnicity, and Sexuality: Intimate Intersections, Forbidden Frontiers
• Michael Omi and Howard Winant, Racial Formation in the United States: From the 1960s to the 1990s (2nd ed.)
• David Roediger, The Wages of Whiteness: Race and the Making of the American Working Class
• Audrey Smedley, Race in North America
• Werner Sollors, ed., The Invention of Ethnicity
• Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi, eds., Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity
• Sasha Torres, ed., Living Color: Race and Television in the United States
• Naomi Zack, Race and Mixed Race

B. Classic References

• Frantz Fanon, Black Skin White Masks
• George Fredrickson, The Black Image in the White Mind
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed., "Race, " Writing, and Difference
• Thomas Gossett, Race: The History of an Idea in America
• Reginald Horsman, Race and Manifest Destiny
• Alexander Saxton, The Rise and Fall of the White Republic
• Frank Snowden, Before Color Prejudice
• Werner Sollors, Beyond Ethnicity: Consent and Descent in American Literature
• --, ed., Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader
• Stephen Steinberg, The Ethnic Myth: Race, Ethnicity, and Class in America
• Nancy Stepan, The Idea of Race in Science

C. Key Journals

• Critical Inquiry
• Diaspora
• Ethnic and Racial Studies
• MELUS
• PMLA
• Public Culture

VIII. Course Schedule and Policies

A. Tentative Course Schedule. The following course schedule is subject to revision--please refer here regularly for updates to this schedule, notes on the texts, and suggestions for further reading. You should read the introductory essay to each unit before beginning it (click on the links in the titles of each unit's heading). These essays will help you see why it is crucial to be aware that each day's reading assignment is designed to offer multiple ways of comparing and contrasting the readings--why it is crucial for you to be an active, engaged, critical reader in this course. Rather than giving equal attention to all texts for a given day, you should be looking for interesting relations between them and focusing in on the texts and relations that you find most significant. I will expect you to gain familiarity with all the readings but to choose at least one or two each day that you have analyzed particularly carefully. Please see me at the earliest sign of a problem if you want individualized advice on how to handle the reading load in the course. (Key: SCRE=The Social Construction of Race and Ethnicity in the United States [2nd ed.].)

Critical Race/Ethnicity Studies

T 8/28 Introductions and Overview
Th 8/30 Discuss Joan Ferrante and Prince Brown, Jr., "Introduction" and "Six Case Studies," SCRE 1-12, 55-62; Ray Elfers, "Can Family Members Really Belong to Different Races?" and "Known Ancestries and Race," SCRE 105-111, 166-167

Theories and Histories

T 9/4 Discuss Joan Ferrante and Prince Brown, Jr., "Classifying People by Race," SCRE 113-128; Vivian Rohrl, "The Anthropology of Race: A Study of Ways of Looking at Race," SCRE 376-385
Th 9/6 Discuss Joan Ferrante and Prince Brown, Jr., "Ethnic Classification," SCRE 215-229; Yen Le Espiritu, "Theories of Ethnicity: An Overview and Assessment," SCRE 257-263

M 9/10 IDENTIFICATION PROJECT I due no later than 11 pm in dropbox on course ANGEL space
T 9/11 Discuss Joan Ferrante and Prince Brown, Jr., "The Persistence, Functions, and Consequences of Social Classification," SCRE 289-307; Ian Haney Lopez, "The Mean Streets of Social Race," SCRE 151-163; Jack Forbes, "Indian and Black as Radically Different Types of Categories," SCRE 164-166; David Cohen, "Reflections on American Ethnicity," SCRE 249-256; Peter Salins, "Americans United by Myths," SCRE 274-287
Th 9/13 Bruce Simon, "White-Blindness," SCRE 473-478; Robert Jensen, "White Privilege Shapes the U.S." and "More Thoughts on Why the System of White Privilege Is Wrong," SCRE 479-484; The Objectivist and The Constructivist, "Race v. Racialization"; GUEST APPEARANCE: Stephen Kershnar, Philosophy, SUNY Fredonia

T 9/18 W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn xxix-xxx, 3-96
Th 9/20 W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn 97-133

T 9/25 W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn 134-172
Th 9/27 W.E.B. Du Bois, Dusk of Dawn 173-267

T 10/2 John Dower, War Without Mercy 3-32; in-class viewing: from Frank Capra, Why We Fight; GUEST APPEARANCE: Christina Jarvis, English and American Studies, SUNY Fredonia
Th 10/4 John Dower, War Without Mercy 33-73

T 10/9 John Dower, War Without Mercy 293-317
Th 10/11 NO CLASS: FALL BREAK

Experiences and Institutions

T 10/16 UNESCO Courier, "The Declaration of Athens," SCRE 355-357; Prince Brown, Jr., "Biology and the Social Construction of the 'Race' Concept" and "Why 'Race' Makes No Scientific Sense," SCRE 144-150, 332-336; Stephen Jay Gould, "Science and Jewish Immigration," SCRE 316-322; GUEST APPEARANCE: Theodore Lee, Biology, SUNY Fredonia
Th 10/18 Stephen Caldwell and Rebecca Popenoe, "Perceptions and Misperceptions of Skin Color," SCRE 409-414; K.C. Cole, "Brain's Use of Shortcuts Can Be a Route to Bias," SCRE 429-434; GUEST APPEARANCE: Cheryl Drout, Psychology, SUNY Fredonia

T 10/23 The U.S. Office of Management and Budget, "Federal Statistical Directive No. 15" and "OMB's Decisions: Revisions to Federal Statistical Directive No. 15," SCRE 135-143; The U.S. Bureau of the Census, "Questions Related to Ethnicity" and "Race," SCRE 230-233, 485-491; Luis Angel Toro, "Directive No. 15 and Self-Identification," SCRE 234-237; Himilce Novas, "What's in a Name?" SCRE 238-240; Rudolph Vecoli, "Are Italian Americans Just White Folks?" SCRE 264-273; GUEST APPEARANCE: Nancy Boynton, Mathematics, SUNY Fredonia
Th 10/25 Joan Ferrante and Prince Brown, Jr., "The Personal Experience of Classification Schemes," SCRE 13-28; Laura Lovett, "Invoking Ancestors," SCRE 198-203; Mary Waters, "Choosing an Ancestry," SCRE 246-248; Marilyn Halter, "Identity Matters: The Immigrant Children," SCRE 73-80; Mitzi Uehara-Carter, "On Being Blackanese," SCRE 52-54; Judy Scales-Trent, "Choosing Up Sides," SCRE 70-72; Sarah Van't Hul, "How It Was for Me," SCRE 81-84
T 10/30 The U.S. Supreme Court, "Plessy v. Ferguson," SCRE 340-350; Cheryl Harris, "Plessy," SCRE 351-354; Ariela Gross, "Litigating Whiteness: Trials of Racial Determination in the Nineteenth-Century South," SCRE 176-197; Paul Knepper, "Historical Origins of the Prohibition of Multiracial Legal Identity in the States and the Nation," SCRE 129-134
Th 11/1 State of California, "Article XIX, Chinese," SCRE 308-309; Angela Ancheta, "Race Relations in Black and White," SCRE 204-213; Cruz Reynoso, "Ethnic Diversity: Its Historical and Constitutional Roots," SCRE 388-399; L. Wade Black and Robert Thrower, "Getting Recognized," SCRE 168-171; Joseph Tovares, "Mojado Like Me," SCRE 85-89; Dympna Ugwu-Oju, "What Will My Mother Say," SCRE 63-67; GUEST APPEARANCE: James Stevens, English and American Indian Studies, SUNY Fredonia

T 11/6 John Dower, War Without Mercy 77-146; Andrea Kim, "Born and Raised in Hawaii, But Not Hawaiian," SCRE 43-49
Th 11/8 John Dower, War Without Mercy 147-190; Yuri Kochiyama, "Then Came the War," SCRE 90-97

T 11/13 John Dower, War Without Mercy 191-261
Th 11/15 John Dower, War Without Mercy 262-290

M 11/19-F 11/23 NO CLASSES: THANKSGIVING BREAK

Fictions and Futures

T 11/27 Patricia Riley, "Adventures of an Indian Princess," SCRE 29-32; Garrett Hongo, "Culture Wars in Asian America," SCRE 39-42; Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange 1-94; PROPOSAL for FINAL PROJECT due in class [consider turning it in much earlier in the semester, however]
Th 11/29 Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange 95-135

M 12/3 IDENTIFICATION PROJECT II due no later than 11 pm in dropbox on course ANGEL space
T 12/4 Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange 136-208
Th 12/6 Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange 209-242; GUEST APPEARANCE: Jennifer Hildebrand, History and African-American Studies, SUNY Fredonia

T 12/11 Karen Tei Yamashita, Tropic of Orange 243-270
Th 12/13 Erich Loewy, "Making Good Again," SCRE 400-409; Patricia Hill Collins, "Toward a New Vision," SCRE 459-472

F 12/21 FINAL PROJECT due no later than 11 pm in dropbox on course ANGEL space

B. Class Policies

1. Attendance. As stated in Section VI above, barring emergencies each absence after the fourth will lower your final course grade by a full grade. Be aware that absences due to emergencies are the only absences that will not be counted toward your total for the semester. Emergencies include but are not limited to death in the family, hospitalization or serious illness, and natural disasters; scheduled and unavoidable school-sponsored events (games, meets, performances, etc.) are also counted as emergencies for the purpose of this attendance policy. Besides emergencies, the only other absences that won't affect your participation/preparation grade are excused absences. Please notify the instructor over email, in advance if possible and, if not, as soon after the absence as possible, if you wish an absence to be considered as an emergency or excused absence; the decision will be made at the instructor's discretion.

2. Online Participation. Please familiarize yourself with the college's "Computer and Network Usage Policy" (College Catalog 2007-2009, pp. 240-247) and check with your instructor first before posting something to the course ANGEL space or American Identities blog that is not directly related to the course.

3. Late Assignments. Online posts that are not well-timed with the course material and fail to spark other students' interest and responses will not count the same as well-timed posts or posts that do inspire further discussion. The Identification Project will lose one-third of a grade per day late (e.g., a paper turned in two days past the due date that would have otherwise received an A- would be penalized two-thirds of a grade and thus receive a B). Only students who ask for an extension at least two days before the due date or the Identification Project and proposal for the final project will be granted one; asking for an extension on the final project means that your final grade for the semester will be an incomplete (I), and that you must turn in your final project before the end of the following semester so that the I becomes a grade other than an F.

4. Plagiarism and Academic Integrity. To plagiarize is "to steal and pass off as one's own the ideas or words of another" (Webster's Seventh New Collegiate Dictionary). SUNY Fredonia strongly condemns plagiarism and takes severe action against those who plagiarize. Disciplinary action may extend to suspension from privileges or expulsion from college. Please familiarize yourself with the college's "Academic Integrity Policy" (College Catalog 2007-2009, pp. 236-239, see also p. 222) and check with your instructor if you have any questions about it.