History 498
“BLACKING UP”: RACIAL CROSSINGS IN AMERICAN HISTORY
INSTRUCTOR: Professor Robin D. G. Kelley
TIME: Tuesdays, 3:00 – 5:50
PLACE: SOB B-48
OFFICE: KAP 449B
OFFICE HOURS: Tuesdays and Wednesdays, 1:30 – 2:50
CONTACT:
“Blacking Up: Racial Crossings in American History” examines key moments of racial “imposture” or masquerade, from the Boston Tea Party through our 21st century alleged “Post-Racial” moment. Rather than focus on the obvious cases of blackface minstrelsy and black-to-white passing, we will pay greater attention to whites who chose to inhabit “the Other,” individuals who, for political, cultural, and social reasons, decide to impersonate black, Indian, Latino, Asian. These racial crossings are sometimes temporary and their objectives vary—from liberal journalism and a quest for cultural or political belonging, ingrained racial fantasies to genuine love. Using historical texts, memoir, film, and music, students will interrogate these experiences and discover the degree to which racial identities are unstable, historically contingent, and yet perhaps the most powerful myth shaping American history.
ASSIGNMENTS: Students are responsible for weekly reading assignments, class presentations, and weekly written responses posted to Blackboard. The responses should be anywhere between 250 – 500 words (one or two pages). Taken together, participation, presentations, and responses will constitute about 50% of your grade. The other 50% will be based on a single research paper in which you will interrogate some aspect or episode of racial crossings in U.S. history.
Your contribution to class discussion as well as your papers should be constructive, substantive, and engaging. I am less impressed with scathing, vicious attacks than I am with thoughtful essays that pay more attention to the historical subjects than the author, and attempt to place a particular work in context.
STATEMENT ON ACADEMIC INTEGRITY: USC seeks to maintain an optimal learning environment. General principles of academic honesty include the concept of respect for the intellectual property of others, the expectation that individual work will be submitted unless otherwise allowed by an instructor, and the obligations both to protect one’s own academic work from misuse by others as well as to avoid using another’s work as one’s own. All students are expected to understand and abide by these principles. Scampus, the Student Guidebook, contains the Student Conduct Code in Section 11.00, while the recommended sanctions are located in Appendix A:
http://www.usc.edu/dept/publications/SCAMPUS/gov/
Students will be referred to the Office of Student Judicial Affairs and Community Standards for further review, should there be any suspicion of academic dishonesty. The Review process can be found at:
http://www.usc.edu/student-affairs/SJACS/
STUDENTS WITH DISABILITIES: Any student requesting academic accommodations based on a disability is required to register with the Disability Services and Programs (DSP) each semester. A letter of verification for approved accommodations can be obtained from DSP. Please be sure the letter is delivered to me (or to the TA) as early in the semester as possible. DSP is located in STU 301 and can be contacted at (213) 740-0776.
REQUIRED READING
Books (all but Bessie Yellowhair, available at USC Bookstore)
Martha A. Sandweiss, Passing Strange: A Gilded Age Tale of Love and Deception Across the Color Line (Penguin Press, 2009)
Philip Deloria, Playing Indian (Yale University Press, 1999)
Gerald Horne, The Color of Fascism: Lawrence Dennis, Racial Passing, and the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism in the United States (New York: NYU Press, 2006)
John Howard Griffin, Black Like Me (London: Signet, 2010)
Grace Halsell, Soul Sister (Crossroads International Publishing, 1999)
______. Bessie Yellowhair (New York: William, Morrow, and Company, 1973) PDF – not in bookstore.
George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (University of Minnesota Press, 2010)
Articles (posted on Blackboard)
Thomas C. Holt, “Marking: Race, Race-making, and the Writing of History,” American Historical Review, 100, No. 1 (Feb., 1995), pp. 1-20
Audrey Smedley, "Race" and the Construction of Human Identity,” American Anthropologist 100, No. 3 (Sep., 1998)
The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: Racialized Social Democracy and the "White" Problem in American Studies Author(s): George Lipsitz Source: American Quarterly, Vol. 47, No. 3 (Sep., 1995), pp. 369-387
Richard Thompson Ford, “What’s Queer About Race?” South Atlantic Quarterly (Summer 2007)
Jill Lane, “ImpersoNation: Toward a Theory of Black-, Red-, and Yellowface in the Americas,” PMLA 123, no. 5 (October 2008).
Eric Lott, "The Seeming Counterfeit": Racial Politics and Early Blackface Minstrelsy,” American Quarterly 43, No. 2 (Jun., 1991), pp. 223-254.
______. “Love and Theft: The Racial Unconscious of Blackface Minstrelsy,” Representations, No. 39 (Summer, 1992), 23-50.
Krystyn Moon, “Toward Exclusion: American Popular Songs on Chinese Immigration, 1850–1882,” Chapter 2 in Moon, Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s – 1920s. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005., access http://site.ebrary.com.libproxy.usc.edu/lib/uscisd/docDetail.action?docID=10150130
Richard L. Henshel, “Ability to Alter Skin Color: Some Implications for American Society,” American Journal of Sociology 76, No. 4 (Jan., 1971), 734-742
Dorinne Kondo, “(Re)Visions of Race: Contemporary Race Theory and the Cultural Politics of Racial Crossover in Documentary Theatre,” Theatre Journal 52, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), 81-107
Adrian Piper, “Passing for White, Passing for Black,” Transition 58 (1992), 4-32
SUGGESTED READING
Brooks, Daphne A. Bodies in Dissent: Spectacular Performances of Race and Freedom. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2006.
Browder, Laura. Slippery Characters: Ethnic Impersonators and American Identities. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of Chapel Hill Press, 2000.
Broyard, Bliss. One Drop: My Father’s Hidden Life—A Story of Race and Family Secrets. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2007.
Chude-Sokei, Louis. The Last “Darky”: Bert Williams, Black-on-Black Minstrelsy, and the African Diaspora. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
Cochran, David Carroll. The Color of Freedom: Race and Contemporary American Liberalism. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1999.
Cockrell, Dale. Demons of Disorder: Early Blackface Minstrels and Their World. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1997.
Dreisinger, Baz. Near Black: White-to-Black passing in American Culture. Univ of Massachusetts Press, 2008.
Gubar, Susan. Racechanges: White Skin, Black Face in American Culture. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1997.
Ignatiev, Noel. How the Irish Became White. New York: Routledge Classics, 2009.
Jackson, Jr., John L. Real Black: Adventures in Racial Sincerity. Chicago, IL: The University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Larsen, Nella. Passing. New York: The Modern Library, 2000.
Lhamon, Jr., W.T. Raising Cain: Blackface Performance from Jim Crow to Hip Hop. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
Lipsitz, George. The Possessive Investment in Whiteness: How White People Profit from Identity Politics. Philadelphia, PA: Temple University Press, 1998.
Lott, Eric. Love and Theft: Blackface Minstrelsy and the American Working Class. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press, 1993.
Mahar, William J. Behind the burnt Cork Mask: Early Blackface Minstrelsy and Antebellum American Popular Culture. Urbana, IL: University of Illinois Press, 1999.
Moon, Krystyn R. Yellowface: Creating the Chinese in American Popular Music and Performance, 1850s – 1920s. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2005.
Robinson, Cedric J. Forgeries of Memory and Meaning: Blacks and the Regimes of Race in American Theater and Film Before World War II. Chapel Hill, NC: The University of Chapel Hill Press, 2007.
Senna, Danzy. Caucasia: A Novel. New York: Riverhead Books, 1998.
Schuyler, George. Black No More: Being an Account of the Strange and Wonderful Workings of Science in the Land of the Free, A.D. 1933-1940. Boston, MA: Northeastern University Press, 1989.
Strausbaugh, John. Black Like You: Blackface, Whiteface, Insult and Imitation in American Popular Culture. New York: Penguin Books, 2006.
Tate, Greg. Ed. Everything But the Burden: What White People Are Taking from Black Culture. New York: Harlem Moon, 2003.
Wald, Gayle. Crossing the Line: Racial Passing in Twentieth-Century U.S. Literature and Culture. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2000.
Weigman, Robyn. American Anatomies: Theorizing Race and Gender. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1995.
READING ASSIGNMENTS
JANUARY 11: INTRODUCTION
JANUARY 18: INTERROGATING RACE IN U.S. HISTORY
Thomas C. Holt, “Marking: Race, Race-making, and the Writing of History”
Audrey Smedley, "Race" and the Construction of Human Identity.”
George Lipsitz, “The Possessive Investment in Whiteness.”
Richard Thompson Ford, “What’s Queer About Race?”
JANUARY 25: STAGING RACE AND THE MAKING OF 19TH CENTURY AMERICA
Jill Lane, “ImpersoNation.”
Eric Lott, "The Seeming Counterfeit"
______. “Love and Theft.”
Krystyn Moon, “Toward Exclusion,” http://site.ebrary.com.libproxy.usc.edu/lib/uscisd/docDetail.action?docID=10150130
FEBRUARY 1: LOVE ACROSS THE COLOR LINE IN THE GILDED AGE, I
Sandweiss, Passing Strange, 1-128
FEBRUARY 8: LOVE ACROSS THE COLOR LINE IN THE GILDED AGE, II
Sandweiss, Passing Strange, 131-306
FEBRUARY 15: PLAYING INDIAN: POLITICS AND CULTURE IN REDFACE
Deloria, Playing Indian.
FEBRUARY 22: SEEING WHITE SUPREMACY THORUGH RED FACE: GRACE HALSELL’S INDIAN ADVENTURES
Halsell, Bessie Yellowhair
MARCH 1: BLACK LIKE ME: LIBERALISM AND RACIAL TERROR
FILM: “Black Like Me”
Griffin, Black Like Me, 1-101
MARCH 8: BLACK LIKE ME (cont….)
Griffin, Black Like Me, 102 – 200
Richard L. Henshel, “Ability to Alter Skin Color.”
MARCH 15: NO CLASS – SPRING BREAK!!!
MARCH 22: SOUL SISTER: SEX AND THE BLACK(FACE) GIRL
Halsell, Soul Sister, parts I and II
MARCH 29: SOUL SISTER (cont…)
FILM: “Watermelon Man”
Halsell, Soul Sister, part III
APRIL 5: BLACK FASCIST?: THE INCREDIBLE STORY OF LAWRENCE DENNIS
Horne, The Color of Fascism
APRIL 12: NO CLASS
APRIL 19: WHITE NEGRO?: THE LIBERATION OF JOHNNY OTIS
Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse
APRIL 26: RACIAL CROSSINGS IN A “POSTRACIAL” ERA?
Dorinne Kondo, “(Re)Visions of Race.”
Adrian Piper, “Passing for White, Passing for Black.”
The second half of the class, students will give brief presentations on their projects.
FINAL PAPERS DUE