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HCOL 086J
Race as U.S. Social Fact and Fiction
Professor John Gennari (Old Mill 425),
Office Hours: Tuesdays and Thursdays 8:15 to 9:45am and other times by appointment
Course Description
In the United States, race is something the pioneering French sociologist Emile Durkheim would call a “social fact” – perhaps the most consequential social fact in the history and culture of the nation. Not only did the settlement and growth of the nation hinge on epochal race-centered processes and institutions (Indian removal, plantation slavery, etc.); for most of the nation’s history its federal and state constitutions and laws defined citizenship, voting eligibility, economic and civil rights in racially exclusionary terms. Notions of racial difference and conditions of racial hierarchy are deeply embedded in American behavior, thought, feeling, attitudes, and customs. Simply put, America has constituted itself – literally formed itself -- through race. No sphere of the nation’s social and cultural life (politics, economics, religion, science, media, education, the arts, entertainment) has gone untouched. Race in the U.S. is a system of belief and practice that assigns different kinds and levels of worth, value, status and desirability to its racialized bodies and racialized spaces while generating heightened emotions toward its racialized images, languages, and styles of expression. Race is a primary tool by which Americans (consciously or not) make sense of their culture and their place within it.
Here’s the fascinating rub: in order to understand race as a social fact, we need to understand race as a fiction, a political invention. How does something that scientists tell us does not exist in the DNA of the body nevertheless become a crucial part of America’s social DNA? Why is understanding the fiction of race a key to understanding race in the United States as a social fact?
We will engage these important questions in two ways. First, we will read and discuss the work of writers and scholars who have grappled with the nuances and complexities of race as both fiction and social fact. Second comes the summa experience of this seminar: your collaboration with a group of your classmates to produce a professional-grade academic “poster” focused on a theme related to the issues we take up in our seminar. Our class will produce posters out of its research into four such themes. You will conduct research individually in the weeks leading up to Spring Break; in the weeks following the break, you will then work with your group outside of class, using your research collectively to conceive and design the poster. On April 20, your group will give a Power Point presentation on your research theme to fellow HCOL 086 students. Finally, you will participate in a full-dress public presentation of the poster in the HCOL 086 Research Symposium on April 27.
My teaching style favors a combination of discussion, Socratic-style debate, and very careful analysis of assigned texts (which means that you must ALWAYS have the required reading material with you in class). I ask that you come to class with your mouth, ears, heart, and mind open; that you listen to and respect each other; and that you challenge yourself, your classmates, and me to do our very best.
Course Objectives
(This is not a hierarchy but rather an integrated and interdependent set):
- To gain a deep understanding of the way race works as a social fact and cultural logic with regard to ideas and beliefs, the body, space, language, performance, and cultural style.
- To understand the centrality of whiteness and white supremacy as the basis of American racial thought and practice.
- To sharpen our ability to analyze and interpret texts (literary, visual, musical) for narrative pattern, thematic development, aesthetic features, and cultural meaning.
- To gain fluency with the history of racial representation in American culture.
- To familiarize ourselves with the key contemporary discourses and debates about race and racism in American culture.
- To gain exposure to college-level research methods of various types (archival, online, ethnographic, etc.), and to see how a topic such as race can be studied using a variety of disciplinary tools and research methods.
- To cultivate and develop vital academic skills and habits such as active and critical reading, engaged class participation and collaboration, poised speaking, clear writing, and purposeful research.
Course Materials
The following required books are available for purchase at the campus bookstore:
Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
Caryl Phillips, Dancing in the Dark
Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me
Alex Tizon, Big Little Man
Russell Banks, Continental Drift
Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah
Additional readings are available digitally in pdf form on our course Blackboard website. Those are the readings designated (BLACKBOARD) in the course schedule below. I INSIST you print out hard copies of these readings and bring them to class on the days they are assigned.
Course Mechanics, Assignments, and Grading
1.Class attendance and participation (15%). Class participation is crucial to one’s overall grade and will be assessed by attendance and ACTIVE participation in class discussions and activities. Merely coming to class with a pulse does not constitute active participation. I think you’ll see that I like a classroom that buzzes with humor and good feeling, but please do not mistake this for a lack of seriousness about the work we have to do. You should come to every class expecting to contribute to the learning environment – by adding your voice to the class discussion, listening closely to your classmates, taking notes, and in general staying focused and generating positive intellectual energy. You should expect to speak up in every class session. If we haven’t heard from you over the course of two or three classes, there’ll be reason to question your level of preparation and engagement. I do not permit the use of laptops, cellphones, iPads, or any other digital/electronic devices in my classroom.
Two things that disappoint me very, very deeply:
1) Surreptitious efforts to check phones and/or other devices during class.
2) Not having one’s own copy of the required reading in hand for each and every class.
A single violation of either results in a ½ absence for that day’s class. Multiple violations result in the drop of a full letter grade in your overall CAP.
These are my grading criteria for class participation: A– Student comes to class prepared and participates actively, significantly enriching the intellectual environment of the class by engaging, supporting, and challenging other students. B – Student comes to class prepared and participates actively. C – Student attends regularly but rarely contributes or shows much interest. D– Student misses classes, rarely contributes, and generally appears unprepared and disengaged. F– Student misses many classes (i.e. more than three unexcused absences), doesn’t contribute to class, and shows no sign of familiarity with or interest in the class material.
2. Homework (15%). This is work you will do on the course Blackboard site, where I will post prompts for brief (one or two substantive paragraphs) but thoughtful responses to the reading assignments. Here is a space to reflect and gather your thoughts about the questions, themes, and issues generated by the course materials, and to develop your skill at using writing to sharpen and deepen your thinking. I will read these homework responses closely but will not grade them individually; rather, I will issue you a composite grade a couple times during the semester, and otherwise push you to work harder if need be and/or affirm your best efforts.
2. Poster exercise (25%: 10% for poster and public presentation; 15% for the process of research, design, production, etc.). Stay tuned for more details.
3. Short paper (10%): Due on February 2. 3-4 pages. Details forthcoming.
4. Research report and annotated bibliography (15%) Due in class on March 8. 6-8 pages. This will be a report and bibliography from your research on the topic that later will become the focus of your group poster project. Details forthcoming.
5. Take-home final essay (20%) This essay will be an “intellectual autobiography” in which you
reflect on what you have learned as a first-year Honors College student, with special attention to this semester’s material.
* RELIGIOUS HOLIDAYS -- Official University Policy reads: “Students have the right to practice the religion of their choice. Each semester students should submit in writing to their instructors by the end of the second full week of classes their documented religious holiday schedule for the semester. Faculty must permit students who miss work for the purpose of religious observances to make up this work.”
**ACCOMODATIONS – Accommodations in this course can be provided with documentation of a learning or other disability through the ACCESS office. See this webpage for more information: http://www.uvm.edu/access/?page=docuguidelines.html
Course Schedule
Race: What, Where, How, Why?
WEEK ONE
January 16
Introduction
January 17 Plenary: Ilyse Morganstein Fuerst, “Religion, Rebels & Jihad: Or, How
Muslims Were Racialized in India” (5:05-6:20pm Billings Lecture Hall)
January 18
reading: Dorothy Roberts, “The Invention of Race” (BLACKBOARD)
An American Slave
WEEK TWO
January 23
reading: Frederick Douglass, Narrative of the Life of Frederick Douglass
January 25
Douglass discussion, continued.
Blackface and Racial Masquerade
WEEK THREE
January 30
reading: Caryl Phillips, Dancing in the Dark, Act One
February 1
reading, Phillips, Act Two and Act Three
February 2 SHORT PAPER DUE, 4 pm
Racial Space
WEEK FOUR
February 6
reading: George Lipsitz, “The White Spatial Imaginary” (BLACKBOARD)
February 7 Plenary: Alison Bechdel, “Dykes, Dads, and Moms to Watch Out
For” (5:05-6:20pm Billings Lecture Hall)
February 8
reading: George Lipsitz, “The Black Spatial Imaginary” (BLACKBOARD)
Black is the Body
WEEK FIVE
February 13
reading: Ta-Nehisi Coates, Between the World and Me, part 1
February 15
reading: Coates, part 2
Interracialism
WEEK SIX
February 20
reading: John Gennari, “Nearer, My God, to Thee” (BLACKBOARD)
February 22
reading: Emily Bernard, “Interstates” (BLACKBOARD)
Beyond the Black/White Binary
WEEK SEVEN
February 27 Alex Tizon, Big Little Man, 1-141
February 28 Plenary: Pablo Bose, “Welcome and Hope/Fear and Loathing: The
Politics of Refugee Resettlement in the Current Climate” ((5:05-6:20pm Billings Lecture Hall)
March 1 Tizon, 143-243
WEEK EIGHT
March 8
RESEARCH REPORT AND ANNOTATED BIBLIOGRAPHY DUE
(N.B. Weeks 9-11 are the crunch weeks for work on the poster. We’ll use some class time for group work, but you should expect to spend lots of time outside of class working as a group on this project)
Race and Expressive Style
WEEK NINE
March 20
reading: Phyllis Rose, “Savage Dance” (BLACKBOARD)
March 21 Plenary: How to Create Your HCOL 086 Poster
(5:05-6:20, Billings Lecture Hall)
March 22
in-class screening: “Renegades” (PBS/BBC)
WEEK TEN
March 27
reading: Glenn Altschuler, “’Brown-Eyed Handsome Man’: Rock ‘n’ Roll and Race”
(BLACKBOARD)
March 29
reading: Joel Dinerstein, “Lester Young and the Birth of Cool” (BLACKBOARD)
Race, Class, Region
WEEK ELEVEN
April 3
reading: Russell Banks, Continental Drift, 1-117
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 1)
April 5
reading: Banks, 118-194
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 2)
WEEK TWELVE
April 10
reading: Banks, 195-239
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 3)
April 11 PANEL PRESENTATIONS (Lafayette 207)
April 12
reading: Banks, 240-355
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 4)
Race, Reconsidered
WEEK THIRTEEN
April 17
reading: Banks, 356-end
April 13 PANEL PRESENTATIONS (Lafayette 207)
April 19
reading: Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie, Americanah, 4-124
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 1)
WEEK FOURTEEN
April 24
reading: Adichie, 125-278
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 2)
April 25 RESEARCH SYMPOSIUM (UVA ALUMNI HOUSE, 61 Summit St.)
April 26
reading: Adichie, 281-431
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 3)
WEEK FIFTEEN
May 1
reading: Adichie, 432-588
(Class discussion led by Poster Group 4)
May 3
reading: Adichie, wrap-up
May 10 FINAL ESSAY DUE, 4 pm