On Critical Race/Ethnicity Studies, Spring 2005

As you know, INDS/HIST 220 Introduction to Ethnicity/Race comprises an interdisciplinary approach to race and ethnicity in the United States and other contemporary multiethnic/multiracial societies. This semester, the course 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.

Unlike prior versions of this course, then, Introduction to Ethnicity/Race does not attempt to survey race/ethnic relations in the United States or systematically compare the cultures and conditions of various ethnic groups in the United States to those in certain other nations or regions. On this page, I will explain why and offer a rationale for what we are doing instead.

I should note at the start, however, that there are plenty of resources available should students wish to supplement the goals and strategies of this course with approaches that better fit the "survey" model. The following anthologies, available on reserve at the circulation desk of Reed Library, provide excellent, up-to-date surveys of race/ethnic groups and relations in the U.S. and around the world, or put the study of race/ethnicity in relation to the study of nationalism, genocide, or global politics:

• Grant Cornwell and Eve Stoddard, eds., Global Multiculturalism: Comparative Perspectives on Ethnicity, Race, and Nation
• Charles Cozic, ed., Nationalism and Ethnic Conflict
• David Goldberg and John Solomos, eds., A Companion to Racial and Ethnic Studies
• Martin Marger, ed., Race and Ethnic Relations: American and Global Perspectives (6th ed.)
• Winston Van Horne, ed., Global Convulsions: Race, Ethnicity, and Nationalism at the End of the Twentieth Century

• Les Back and John Solomos, eds., Theories of Race and Racism: A Reader
• Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil Gotanda, Gary Peller and Kendall Thomas, eds., Critical Race Theory: The Key Writings that Formed the Movement
• Charles Gallagher, ed., Rethinking the Color Line: Readings in Race and Ethnicity (2nd ed.)
• E. Nathaniel Gates, ed., Cultural and Literary Critiques of the Concepts of Race
• --,ed., Racial Classification and History
• Henry Louis Gates, Jr., ed., "Race, " Writing, and Difference
• Avery Gordon and Christopher Newfield, eds., Mapping Multiculturalism
• Martha Hodes, ed., Sex, Love, Race: Crossing Boundaries in North American History
• Wahneema Lubiano, ed., The House That Race Built: Black Americans, U.S. Terrain
• Anne McClintock, Aamir Mufti, and Ella Shohat, eds., Dangerous Liaisons: Gender, Nation, and Postcolonial Perspectives
• Paula Rothenberg, ed., Race, Class, and Gender in the United States (4th ed.)
• Amritjit Singh and Peter Schmidt, eds., Postcolonial Theory and the United States: Race, Ethnicity, and Literature
• Werner Sollors, ed., Theories of Ethnicity: A Classical Reader
• John Stone and Dennis Rutledge, eds., Race and Ethnicity: Comparative and Theoretical Approaches
• Becky Thompson and Sangeeta Tyagi, eds., Names We Call Home: Autobiography on Racial Identity

I'll start not with the first question but with the third. One answer to this penultimate question starts with a certain dissatisfaction that I and many other scholars share with certain assumptions built into the disciplines that pioneered the study of ethnic groups and race relations--that scholars in the field should analyze races and ethnic groups or relations between them (rather than, say, racialization, racial formation, or ethnic boundaries--the drawing of color lines, the policing of borders, the legitimization of hierarchies); that races and ethnic groups 'exist' almost naturally (rather than, for example, being understood as social constructions--products of efforts to conceptualize, classify, and categorize human differences); that individuals rather unproblematically 'belong' to a single race or ethnic group (rather than, for instance, negotiate their identities in complex, context-specific, and changing ways). In a sense, then, this dissatisfaction stems from the disquieting realization that twentieth-century social sciences have only incompletely and unevenly extricated themselves from the gravitational field of nineteenth-century racial sciences.

Considering other dissatisfactions with twentieth-century social sciences and their approach to race and ethnic studies can help us get another step closer to defining critical race/ethnicity studies. Too often, intellectual historians (those who study the origins and development of the concept of race) have not been in dialogue with social historians (those who study 'history from below' and explore how history looks different when the perspectives and experiences of marginalized, disenfranchised, or oppressed groups are taken seriously) and vice versa, much less with cultural anthropologists or sociologists. And the same has been too often true for the latter as well; empirical, ethnographic, and structuralist studies have not always benefitted from the insights of historians. And scholars focusing on race and ethnicity in one locale or region are too often ignorant of related work being done on other places. One effect of this failure of communication across disciplinary boundaries is that classic paradigms such as identity, immigration, assimilation, acculturation, pluralism, and multiculturalism and metaphors such as melting pot, salad bowl, and mosaic have not been critically reexamined or juxtaposed with newer theories of social construction, racial formation, racialization, gendering, hybridity, mimicry, identification, ideology, trauma, or embodiment. Multiethnic studies has not yet proven itself to be a site where relevant interdisciplinary work in women's studies, American Studies, cultural studies, postcolonial studies, global studies, and various area and regional studies can be brought into dialogue with the disciplines of history, anthropology, sociology, politics, and literature and new mixtures, combinations, and insights can be nurtured and disseminated.

Not only has the study of race and ethnic relations failed to consistently realize its interdisciplinary or transdisciplinary potential, it has also tended to defer becoming a truly comparative field. Ethnic groups have often been studied separately, race relations have often been analyzed according to a binary black/white model, and racial and ethnic groups have often been understood primarily as national minorities. The opportunity to put the study of race and ethnicity in dialogue with studies of religion, nationalism, language, culture, gender, class, migration, diaspora, globalization, colonialism, identity politics, and social movements has not been systematically and consistently pursued, much less the equally important chance to explore connections, tensions, parallels, and divergences among Black Studies, Latino Studies, Asian American Studies, and American Indian Studies and between them and African Studies, Asian Studies, European Studies, and indigenous studies.

All this is, of course, changing, but courses and curricula often lag behind scholarship. And program design, implementation, and transformation demand even more time and effort than the more individualistic pursuits of research and teaching. Still, many people who identify themselves as scholars of multiethnic studies or one of its many branches recognize the conceptual and institutional limitations I've been enumerating--and are working to overcome them. So perhaps the simplest answer to the question of what critical race/ethnicity studies is, then, is a name I think ought to be given to such efforts to change the focus and priorities of multiethnic studies. What's "critical" about critical race/ethnicity studies is thus a critical attitude toward race and ethnicity and toward past and current studies of race and ethnicity. This is an admittedly rough sketch of what the editors of the various anthologies I'm grouping under the rubric of critical race/ethnicity studies articulate much more precisely and eloquently in the introductions to their essay collections, but as a working definition for the beginning of the semester, it'll have to do.

Hopefully in the course of answering my third question I have also answered the previous two. The latter list of anthologies, I submit, offers better models for the comparative, interdisciplinary, and transnational study of race and ethnicity than the former. And the readings I've chosen for this course are informed by these models or help us better understand the relations between them. The answer to my fourth and final question is a little more complex, so I'll devote a little more space to it. One reason I've designed this course as an introduction to critical race/ethnicity studies--and organized it by theories and histories, experiences and institutions, and fictions and futures (rather than by ethnic or racial group, and their histories, cultures, politics, and relations with other groups)--is because I believe doing so will better prepare students in all majors for future study, whether in a multiethnic studies minor, multicultural education, or one of the disciplines. I believe it will also better prepare them to critically engage, evaluate, and reflect on the materials and methodologies in future courses. Rather than simply seek to combine and distill what such courses as Introduction to African American Studies, Introduction to American Indian Studies, Introduction to Latino Studies, or other introductory courses in English or History already do well, this course attempts to do offer something different yet complementary. Moreover, I believe that organizing the course as an introduction to critical race/ethnicity studies will help put all the students in the course--whatever their major, minor, or class year--on a more equal footing and force us all--whatever our identities, ancestries, heritages, affiliations, or experiences--to find our footing. By emphasizing comparative, interdisciplinary, and transnational inquiry, then, I hope to offer a series of multiple, partial, and overlapping entries into the field and to offer an array of challenges that will necessitate repeated orientation and reorientation.

Perhaps under the influence of Rediker, Linebaugh, and Prashad, then, I find myself resorting to nautical metaphors at this point: we all are in the same boat, embarking on a voyage of exploration and navigation; as we all update our conceptual maps and chart some of the main currents of critical race/ethnicity studies, we will have to learn to find our sea legs and deal with this more fluid medium. At one time or another, we each should feel 'at sea' or 'adrift'; at times, we'll all feel like we're tacking 'into the wind' or heading 'against the current'--without going through these experiences, without leaving the safety of the shores of our knowledge, beliefs, assumptions, and habits, at least for a time, the kind of learning we undergo in this course will be limited, and of limited value.

I'll let you all explore on your own further implications of moving from a vocabulary of 'field' to 'ocean' when conceiving of how knowledge is organized and transmitted in academia--and play with related metaphors of shipwreck and lighthouses, of hurricanes and Bermuda Triangle, and others that may spring to mind--and simply conclude this introduction to the course by suggesting that the conceptual and institutional fluidity I am trying to incorporate into the conception and design of this course extends as well to my pedagogical strategies and modes of assessing student learning. For those accustomed to courses that attempt to 'survey a field' or 'cover a period'--in which the predominant mode of teaching is lecturing and the predominant mode of assessment is exams--the range of things we do in class and on the listserv over the course of the semester and the range of ways I evaluate your learning may be a bit unsettling. Rather than only testing how well you understand critical/race ethnicity studies and apply its methodologies, I am most interested in fostering a critical approach to critical race/ethnicity studies, both individually and collectively. That's why I describe a key course goal as considering the stakes of conceiving of critical race/ethnicity studies as a comparative, transnational, and postcolonial field of inquiry--the activities and assignments in this course are aimed to help you through various stages of such consideration. You will have many opportunities to demonstrate your understanding of key concepts and ability to apply key methodologies, but these will be subordinated to a consideration of their value and utility, of how and why they matter, of their implications or ramifications, and of their relations to your studies and your lives. You will not be expected to do this completely on your own, but in dialogue with your peers and myself--I expect us all to learn from and to engage each other, to take risks and turn mistakes into insights, to be willing to consider and evaluate multiple perspectives, standpoints, worldviews, and paradigms, and to balance skepticism and critical thinking with imagination and creativity.

If you want to find out more about critical race/ethnicity studies, I've featured on the links page some web sites that provide overviews the field. I encourage you to check them out and suggest others you find on the web to be added to this page.

So welcome to this particular introduction to critical race/ethnicity studies and feel free to drop by office hours to discuss this page or the course in more depth with me--or to use discussion questions, reflective essays, the identification project, and the final project to try to figure things out on your own and in dialogue with others in the class.

INDS/HIST 220: Introduction to Ethnicity/Race, Spring 2005
Created: 2/4/05 12:51 am
Last modified: 2/12/05 2:48 pm