Doctoral Seminar: Anglophone Cultural Studies

Let’s Talk about Race (ASC PhD Seminar, Agnieszka Graff, Fall 2023)

Porozmawiajmy o rasie

SHORT DESCRIPTION:

The readings (and viewings) selected for this semester are all devoted to a single topic: race. The books are significant contributions to the new wave of discourse around race relations in the US. They are aimed at a general reading public, but based on serious research. Together, they will provide us with insight into one of the most significant debates in US culture today. In the second half of each class meeting one student will present his/her work.

LONG:

In recent years several thinkers – historians, sociologists, political scientists – have made the argument that US society is a race-based caste system, thus not quite a democracy. The claim is shocking if you are accustomed to the concept of color-blindness, or to the liberal view of racial progress, the optimistic tale of America’s increasing inclusiveness, etc. Yet, the idea of America’s racist roots and the continuing importance of the racial divide – with roots in Critical Race Theory, hotly contested by the right – is no longer considered radical. It is reflected in the Black Lives Matter movement, examined in progressive media, and implicit in many works of popular culture, art, film and literature. So let’s talk about it – the arguments, the evidence, the implications. Most (but not all) the books on our list are written by academics. Each has made a significant impact. BLM is obviously in the background as is the resurgence of racism on the right.

The second part of each class is – as usual – devoted to one participant’s PhD project. You will present your work, give us something to read or watch, and we will hold an in-depth discussion of your project.

Readings for 8 meetings:

1. Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness (The New Press, 2012); Viewing: 13th (Documentary film dir. by Ava du Varnay, 2016)

2. Carol Anderson, White Rage: The Unspoken Truth of Our Racial Divide (Bloomsbury Publishing, 2016)

3. Ta-Nehisi Coates, We Were Eight Years in Power (Random House, 2018)

4. Robin DiAngelo, White Fragility: Why It’s So Hard for White People to Talk About Racism (Beacon Press, 2018)

5. Isabel Wilkerson, Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents (Random House, 2020)

6. Christopher J. Lebron, The Making of Black Lives Matter: A Brief History of an Idea (Oxford University Press, 2023)

7. Viewing: Jordan Peele: Get Out and NOPE. Reading: Kevin Wynter, Critical Race Theory and Jordan Peele's ‘Get Out’ (Bloomsbury Academic, 2022)

8. Reading and viewing for final class meeting is to be selected. Our options include: Selections from: ed. Jelani Cobb and David Remnick, The Matter of Black Lives: Writing from The New Yorker (2021 HarperCollins, 2021); Ibram X. Kendi, Stamped from the Beginning: The Definitive History of Racist Ideas in America (Bold Type Books, 2017); George Fredrickson, Racism: A Short History. New edition with foreword by Albert Camarillo (Princeton UP 2016).

In order get credit, you need to:

- attend the seminar and do the reading (one absence per semester is accepted);

- present your work to the class;

- contribute at least three times to the Kampus forum, responding to readings.