Race and Science in the United States

History 548: Race and Science in the United States

Winter 2009

12:30 -1:50 p.m. Tuesday & Thursday

McMicken 43

Professor Tracy Teslow

Office hours: T, TH 2:00-3:00 pm, & by appointment

310D McMicken Hall phone: 556-2557 email:

Course Description

This course examines the way scientific concepts and practices have defined racial difference in the United States. Spanning the 19th and 20th centuries, the course seeks to better understand the multiple, shifting meanings and uses of race and the participation of the biological, medical and social sciences in constructing them. The course asks how race has been defined, by whom, and to what end. In looking for answers to these questions, our study will include public health practices and Chinese-American residents of San Francisco, eugenics and the construction of whiteness, IQ debates, UNESCO statements on race, and the Human Genome Diversity Project. The course will combine lecture and discussion.

Required Texts:

· Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different Color: European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race, Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1998.

· Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco's Chinatown, University of California, 2001.

· All additional readings will be provided as PDFs via Blackboard (except for those accessed on websites listed in the syllabus).

Assignments and Grading

Each week class meetings will be devoted to lecture material covering the historical period in question and relevant themes, as well as discussion of assigned texts. This means that it is critical that you carefully prepare the readings before class to be prepared for discussion. Participation in class discussion is encouraged and expected. In addition, students will write two short (4-5 page) papers on assigned topics and take an in-class final exam consisting of identifications and short essays. You will also attend the exhibition “Race: Are We So Different?” at the Museum Center and write a short reflection. Details concerning the assigned papers and the final exam will be provided as they approach. Graduate students will be assigned additional readings and will meet with me separately to discuss them. Graduate students papers will be 8-10 pages.

Participation 10%

Field trip + paper 30%

Second Paper 25%

Final 35%

Please Note:

· Plagiarism is not allowed and will result in a failing grade for the course. Plagiarism entails presenting others’ work as your own—whether that of your roommate, work obtained on the internet, or material from a book or article. You need not copy an entire paper or article to commit plagiarism—any identifiable portion of text that you include in your essay without proper attribution constitutes plagiarism and is grounds for action. If you are unclear about what constitutes plagiarism, please consult the guidelines in the Student Code of Conduct or talk to me.

· Late papers—including papers turned in after the beginning of class—will be penalized. Exceptions will be made only in the case of hardship or illness. Every effort should be made to notify me in advance.

· Email. Papers may not be sent as email attachments, except with advance permission.

CLASS SCHEDULE

WEEK 1: Jan. 6 & 8 Introductions

What is Race? Thinking about Race, Science and History

· Lawrence Wright, “One Drop of Blood,” in New Yorker, July 25, 1994, 46-55. Available at: http://www.lawrencewright.com/art-drop.html

· Thomas C. Holt, “Understanding the Problematic of Race Through the Problem of Race-Mixture”

· Jonathan Marks, “Scientific and Folk Ideas About Heredity.” Available at http://personal.uncc.edu/jmarks/interests/Baltimore.html

Begin reading for Jan. 20: Jacobsen, Whiteness of a Different Color: Introduction, Chapters 1-3 and 7 (see Week 3 below)

WEEK 2: Jan. 13 & 15 What is Race? Origins of Race in Science

· Nicholas Hudson, “From ‘Nation’ to ‘Race:’ The Origin of Racial Classification” in Eighteenth Century Studies 29:3 (1996), 247-64.

· Nancy Stepan, “Race and Gender: the Role of Analogy in Science” in Harding, Racial Economy of Science, pp. 359-76.

· Nancy Leys Stepan, “Race, Gender, Science and Citizenship,” in Gender & History, vol. 10, no. 1, April 1998, pp. 26-52.

Ø “Race: Are We So Different?” opens Jan. 17 at the Cincinnati Museum Center

Exhibit website: http://www.understandingrace.org/home.html

WEEK 3: Jan. 20 & 22 Making Whiteness

· Stephen J. Gould, “American Polygeny and Craniometry Before Darwin: Blacks and Indians as Separate, Inferior Species,” in The “Racial” Economy of Science, p. 84-115.

· Jacobsen, Whiteness of a Different Color: Introduction: The Fabrication of Race, Chapter 1: “Free White Persons” in the Republic, 1790-1840,; Chapter 2: Anglo-Saxons and Others, 1840-1924; Chapter 3: Becoming Caucasian, 1924-1965; and Chapter 7: Naturalization and the Courts; p. 1-135 and 223-245.

Grad Student Discussion: Spectacle and Exhibition:

· Shari Hunsdorf, “Nanook and His Contemporaries: Imagining Eskimos in American Culture, 1897-1922” Critical Inquiry, vol. 27, no. 1 (Autumn 2000) p. 122-148

· Alison Griffiths, “Science and Spectacle: Visualizing the Other at the World’s Fair,” in Wondrous Difference: Cinema, Anthropology, & Turn-of-the-Century Visual Culture, New York: Columbia University Press, 2002, p. 46-85

· Anne Fausto-Sterling, “Gender, Race and Nation: The Comparative Anatomy of “Hottentot” Women in Europe, 1815-1817,” in J. Terry and J. Urla, eds. Deviant Bodies, 1995, p. 19-48

· Selection from Nicolas Bancel, Pascal Blanchard, et. al., eds., Human Zoos: From the Hottentot Venus to Reality Shows, Liverpool University Press, 2009

WEEK 4: Jan. 27 & 29 Race and Genetics I: Eugenics

Primary texts:

· H. H. Goddard, “Feeblemindedness,” in Classics of criminology, ed. Joseph E. Jacoby, (Waveland Press, 2004), 165-172.

· Richard Dugdale, “The Jukes: A Study of Crime, Pauperism and Heredity,” in Classics of criminology, ed. Joseph E. Jacoby, (Waveland Press, 2004), 157-164.

Secondary texts:

· Robert Rydell, Ch. 2 “‘Fitter Families for Future Firesides’: Eugenics Exhibitions between the Wars” in World of Fairs: the century-of-progress expositions, University of Chicago Press, 1993, p. 38-60.

· Joseph Graves, “Mendelism, the neo-Darwinian Synthesis, and the Growth of Eugenics” from The Emperor’s New Clothes. Biological Theories of Race at the Millenium, (Rutgers University Press, 2001), p. 107-127.

Ø Essay #1 due Friday, Jan. 30 at 4:00 pm via Blackboard

WEEK 5: Feb. 3 & 5 Race and Public Health: Chinatown

· Nayan Shah, Contagious Divides: Epidemics and Race in San Francisco’s Chinatown, Introduction and Chapters 1-4, p. 1-119 (skim Chapters 7 & 8).

Grad Student Discussion: Blood and Belonging

Readings from Donald Moore, Jake Kosek, and Anand Pandian, eds., Race, Nature, and the Politics of Difference, Duke University Press, 2003:

· Keith Wailoo, “Inventing the Heterozygote: Molecular Biology, Racial Identity, and the Narratives of Sickle-Cell Disease, Tay-Sachs, and Cystic Fibrosis,” p. 235-253.

· Donna Haraway, “For the Love of a Good Dog: Webs of Action in the World of Dog Genetics,” 254-295.

· Robyn Wiegman, “Intimate Publics: Race, Property, and Personhood,” p. 296-319.

WEEK 6: Feb. 10 & 12 Race and Medical Science: Tuskegee

· Nancy Kreiger and Mary Bassett, “The Health of Black Folk: Disease, Class, and Ideology in Science,” in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 161-169.

· James Jones, “The Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment: ‘A Moral Astigmatism,’” in The “Racial” Economy of Science, p. 275-286.

· Selections from Tuskegee’s Truths. Rethinking the Tuskegee Syphilis Study, ed. Susan Reverby, (University of North Carolina Press, 2000)

· Allan M. Brandt, “Racism and Research: The Case of the Tuskegee Syphilis Experiment,” 15-33.

· Barbara Rosenkrantz, “Non-Random Events,” 236-247.

· Charles S. Johnson, “The Shadow of the Plantation: Survival,” 41-58.

· R. H. Kampmeier, “The Tuskegee Study of Untreated Syphilis,” 193-201.

· Susan L. Smith, “Neither Victim nor Villiain: Eunice Rivers and Public Health Work,” 348-364.

· Fred Gray, “The Lawsuit,” 473-488.

WEEK 7: Feb. 17 & 19 Race and IQ

· Stephen J. Gould, “The Hereditarian Theory of IQ” in The Mismeasure of Man, (W.W. Norton & Company, 1981), 146-233.

· R. C. Lewontin, Steven Rose, and Leon J. Kamin, “IQ: The Rank Ordering of The World,” in The “Racial” Economy of Science, p. 142-160.

· Selections from The bell curve debate: history, documents, opinions, eds. Russell Jacoby and Naomi Glauberman, (New York: Times Books, 1995):

· Richard Herrnstein, “IQ,” 599-616.

· Arthur R. Jensen, “The Differences Are Real,” 617-629.

· David Layzer, “Science or Superstition?” 653-678.

Grad Student Discussion: The Ongoing IQ Controversy

Readings from Psychology, Public Policy, and Law. Vol 11(2), June 2005:

· J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen, “Thirty years of research on race differences in cognitive ability,” 235-294

· Robert J. Sternberg, “There are no public-policy implications: A reply to Rushton and Jensen (2005),” 295-301

· Richard E. Nisbett, “Heredity, environment, and race differences in IQ: A commentary on Rushton and Jensen (2005),” 302-310

· Linda S. Gottfredson, “What if the hereditarian hypothesis is true?,” 311-319

· Lisa Suzuki and Joshua Aronson, “The cultural malleability of intelligence and its impact on the racial/ethnic hierarchy,” 320-327

· J. Philippe Rushton and Arthur R. Jensen, “Wanted: More race realism, less moralistic fallacy,” 328-336

WEEK 8: Feb. 24 & 26 No Such Thing? Questioning the Science of Race

Primary texts:

· Frank Livingstone, “On the Nonexistence of Human Races” in The “Racial” Economy of Science, p. 133-41.

· 1950 and 1952 UNESCO Statements on Race, reprinted in Ashley Montagu, Man’s Most Dangerous Myth: The Fallacy of Race, 4th ed., Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, The World Publishing Company, 1964, p. 361-370.

Secondary texts:

· Nancy Leys Stepan, and Sander L. Gilman, "Appropriating the Idioms of Science: The Rejection of Scientific Racism," in The "Racial" Economy of Science, 170-193.

· Peggy Pascoe, “Miscegenation Law, Court Cases and Ideologies of ‘Race’ in Twentieth Century America,” The Journal of American History 83:1, 44-69.

Ø Essay #2 due Friday, Feb. 27 at 4:00 pm via Blackboard

WEEK 9: March 3 & 5 Genetics and Race II

Human Genome Diversity Project

· Reardon, Jenny, 2001. "The Human Genome Diversity Project: A Case Study in Coproduction." Social Studies of Science 31: 357-388.

· Also look at: Human Genome Diversity (HGD) Project: Protocol, FAQ Summary Report, Statement to National Academy of Sciences: http://www.stanford.edu/group/morrinst/hgdp.html

Discussion: Genes, Race and Ancestry

· “Is Race Real?” website: http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/

· Armand Marie Leroi, “A Family Tree in Every Gene” (everyone reads)

· Additional articles assigned by groups (assigned in class)

WEEK 10: March 8 & 10: Recent Debates

· Nadia Abu El-Haj, “The Genetic Reinscription of Race,” Annual Review of Anthropology, September 2007, Vol. 36, Pages 283-300.

· Other readings TBA

Final exam: Thursday, March 19, 1:30-3:30 pm, 43 McMicken

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