2008–2009 Ethnic and Diasporic Studies Courses
Courses in Related Disciplines
African American Letters: Race Writing and Black Subjectivities
Level: Open
Semester: Year
This seminar will examine pivotal moments and texts in the history of African American letters, ranging from Olaudah Equiano’s Interesting Narrative (1789) to Saul Williams’s The Dead Emcee Scrolls (2006). Working our way through a variety of genres (autobiography, the captivity narrative, drama, elegy, the essay, fiction, film, music, poetry, polemical prose, public oratory, and the slave narrative), we will explore a number of matters pertinent to literary studies in general, as well as those with specific implications for African American writing and writers. We will consider the circumstances of textual production and reception, ideas and ideologies of literary history and culture, aesthetics, authorship and audience. We will focus our attention immediately on the emergence of African American writing under the regime of chattel slavery and the questions it poses about “race,” “authorship,” “subjectivity,” “self-mastery,” and “freedom.” We will consider the material and social conditions under which our selected texts were edited, published, marketed, and “authenticated.” Our ultimate aim is to situate our selections within the broadest possible contexts of their time and ours. We will also focus on the changing notions of racial identification in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, addressing how the wide array of genres shape and are shaped by pivotal cultural and political movements, such as the “New Negro,” the Harlem Renaissance, civil rights, Black Arts/Black Power, womanism, as well as current debates over matters like hip-hop, same-sexuality, incarceration, and “premature death.” Additionally, we will examine how the texts deal with (recent) questions about black identities and subjectivities that get funneled through notions of a postrace and/or postethnic (international) society. Some authors we might explore include, but are not limited to, Thomas Jefferson, David Walker, Francis Harper, Frederick Douglass, Harriet Wilson, Anna Julia Cooper, Charles Chesnutt, Booker T. Washington, W. E. B. Du Bois, Nella Larsen, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Lorraine Hansberry, Margaret Walker, Amiri Baraka, Huey Newton, Alice Walker, Toni Morrison, and Audre Lorde.
African Modernities
Level: Intermediate,Advanced
Semester: Fall
“Is an asphalt road modern? If a traditional peddler is walking on a modern road, does the road become more traditional or the peddler more modern? Both, either, neither?”
– Renato Rosaldo
Popular representations of modern Africa in the West often depict a continent that clings to—and is weighed down by—tradition. Such representations generally portray “tradition” not just as the opposite of modernity, but as that which is opposed to and defiant of modernity. But what exactly is modernity, anyway? Does the concept of “modernity” necessarily go hand in hand with Western cultural hubris, imperialistic endeavors, and globalization? Does it imply a state or status that is singular and universal, or conversely, is it possible to speak of competing and contested modernities? Drawing on contemporary ethnographies from various regions of sub-Saharan Africa, this course will introduce you to the complexity of ideas, practices, and struggles that exist throughout the large and diverse continent today. Insisting on (and also problematizing) the existence on African modernities, we will complicate and deconstruct the often taken-for-granted dichotomy between modernity and tradition. We will also consider the production of nostalgia and authenticity in discourses of belonging and “otherness” in postcolonial Africa.
Conscience of the Nations: Classics of African Literature
Level: Open
Semester: Fall
One way to think of literature is as the conscience of a people, reflecting on their origins, their values, their losses, and their possibilities. This course will study major representative texts in which sub-Saharan African writers have taken up the challenge of cultural formation and criticism. Part of what gives the best writing of modern Africa its aesthetic power is the political urgency of its task: the past still bears on the present, the future is yet to be written, and what writers have to say matters enough for their work to be considered dangerous. Political issues and aesthetic issues are thus inseparable in their work. Creative tensions in the writing between indigenous languages and European languages, between traditional forms of orature and storytelling and self-consciously “literary” forms, register all the pressures and conflicts of late colonial and postcolonial history. To discern the traditionalist sources of modern African writing, we will first read examples from epic, folktales, and other forms of orature. Major fiction will be selected from the work of Tutuola, Achebe, Beti, Sembene, Bâ, Head, Ngu~gi~, La Guma, and Saro-Wiwa; drama from the work of Soyinka and Aidoo; poetry from the work of Senghor, Rabearivelo, Okigbo, Okot p’Bitek, Brutus, Mapanje, and others. Conference work can entail more extended work in any of these writers or literary modes or other major African or African American writers and movements; can be developed around a major theme or topic; and can include background study in history, philosophy, geography, politics, or theory.
Contemporary World Literatures: Fictions of the Yard
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Year
This course will introduce students to the various permutations of the genre called “Yard Fiction,” generally associated with the writings of Caribbean nationals and expatriates of color. We will examine mostly novels and novellas, ranging from C. L. R. James’s Minty Alley (1939) to Junot Díaz’s Drown (1996). Ideally, we will explore the intersections of race, space, and culture in these texts and the contexts that they address. For our purposes, “the yard” can be defined as a space that is home to mostly working-class people of color. The yard is usually a building, or a group of buildings on the same street, basically a “tenement.” Subsequently, everything in the selected texts generally occurs in each of the different characters’ “own backyard.” The yard, as a physical space, generally binds the characters/people intimately, so they become each other’s keepers and peepers. We will examine how these different authors image and utilize the space of yard, and different forms of writing, such as the vignette style, in order to “effect” a unique mode of storytelling, poetics, and politics. Given that yard fiction is associated with “urban or urbanlike” settings/ dwellings, and the course aims to give a worldview of this genre, many of the texts include writings that are set in cities and villages on continental Africa, in London, in the United States, and in the Caribbean. Some general themes that are consistent with the genre are language, gender, race, ethnicity, class, urban space, imperialism, globalization, coloniality, postcoloniality, neocoloniality, indepen-dence, and culture, along with the notion of music (calypso) and gossip as primary carriers of news and information, the role of the voyeur, placing and marking territory, and the making, unmaking, and remaking of community.
Crossing Borders and Boundaries: The Social Psychology of Immigration
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Spring
Immigration is a worldwide phenomenon where people move into another nation with the intention of making a better life for themselves and/or residing there permanently. This seminar explores the crucial role of psychology in understanding the processes associated with immigrants and immigration. The course begins with some theoretical perspectives on immigration as well as a brief historical overview of sociological and social psychological research on immigrants. We then examine the identity of the immigrant, stressing the profound distinctions between forced and voluntary immigrants. We will look at how the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and culture shape the psychological experience of immigrants. Seeking to extend our analysis to immigration’s impact on the host population, we conclude the course by discussing several social psychological issues such as the intergroup relations, discrimination, and modes of adaptation.
Democracy and Diversity
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
Does democracy work only in homogeneous societies that overcome by assimilating sources of difference and diversity? Only in this way, it has long been maintained, can a people be sufficiently similar to form shared political understanding and projects. Absent considerable commonality—religious, linguistic, ethnic, racial, ethical—it is feared that democracy deteriorates all too often into the tyranny of the majority or a war of all against all. But we are in the midst of a dramatic shift in which democratic societies are increasingly diverse and their citizens less willing to “forget” their ethnic, religious, gender, sexual, cultural, racial, linguistic, and other differences to melt into a dominant national culture. These developments raise some basic questions. Is it possible to achieve sufficient agreement on fundamental political issues in a diverse society to sustain democracy? Can the character of political community or the nation be reconceived and reformed? If not, is democracy doomed? Or might it be possible to reform democracy to render it compatible with conditions of deep diversity? If so, does the democratic claim to legitimacy also need to be transformed? This course will explore these questions in a number of ways. We will study exemplary historical statements of the ideal of democracy. We will examine the nature of social and cultural diversity, looking at several dimensions that tend to cut across one another in contemporary politics: religion, value, gender, sexuality, race, ethnicity, class, and culture. Finally, we will explore works that bring these themes together by attempting to (re-) articulate the relevance of specific identities to political engagement and the general ideal of democracy in light of increased diversity. The disciplinary focus of this course is on contemporary political philosophy.
Democratization and Inequality
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Year
The last three decades have seen significant growth in the number of democracies around the world. As more countries become democratic, increasing numbers of citizens are formally endowed with political equality. U.S. presidents from Bill Clinton to George W. Bush have praised the advance of democracy as a key factor in promoting peace both between and within states. In the first semester of this yearlong course, we will investigate and compare processes of democratization from Europe to Latin America and parts of Africa and Asia. We will explore individual cases of democratization to consider the influence of domestic as well as foreign actors and political as well as economic conditions. To what extent do similar processes bring about democratic transitions in different regions and moments in time? What role have various forms of violence played in transitions to democracy? In the second semester, we will explore the domestic and transnational effects of the growing number of new democracies. What impact does a transition to democracy have on the political influence of ordinary citizens, on the openness of government institutions and the processes of rule? In what ways does political equality empower citizens? Do transitions to democracy bring about fundamental policy shifts to better meet the needs of the majority? How does a transition to democracy impact social movements? Do citizens of new democracies perceive their democratic government as the best possible regime? Throughout this course, students will investigate the relationship between democracy and different forms of inequality.
First-Year Studies: The Question of Culture: Anthropology
Level: FYS
Semester: FYS
What is culture, anyway? Is it something we have, or something we do? Can it be located in the way we think or the way we behave? This first-year studies seminar will introduce students to the field of cultural anthropology. It will also teach students to think like anthropologists. It has often been said that the aim of anthropology is to make the apparently strange and exotic seem comprehensible, while at the same time compelling us to ask questions about behaviors we might consider to be “natural” or “commonsensical.” By approaching this course as an anthropological experience, students will come to understand their own ideas about subjects like time, space, family, food, and personhood to be culturally constructed and historically contingent. We will consider patterns of behavior, systems of meaning, and structures of value in different societies and cultures throughout the world, including our own. Looking to ethnographic studies as well as theoretical writing, we will visit a range of perspectives on such topics as race and ethnicity, globalization and capitalism, gender, nationalism, power, representation, subjectivity and reflexivity, structure and agency, history, memory, and identity. By way of this ongoing engagement with cultural analysis and reflection, students will improve their ability to read closely, write effectively, and think critically.
Global Africa: Theories and Cultures of Diaspora
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Year
Changes in migration patterns, immigration laws, and refugee policies have meant that Africans are living and working in unexpected places. Studies of the African diaspora used to focus on the dispersion of Africans as a result of the trans-Saharan, transatlantic, and Indian Ocean slave trades. More recent scholarship has focused on new African diasporas: Senegambians in Harlem and Rome, Ghanaians in Germany, Nigerians in Japan. These modern-day dispersals, powered in part by the forces of globalization, demand new levels of analysis by scholars. How have people of African descent ended up settling in places far from their natal homes? How has the concept of an African homeland contributed to the articulation of religious and political movements (Ethiopianism, black power, Rastafarianism, Pan-Africanism) in the diaspora? How have theories about other diasporas (South Asian, Jewish, Chinese, etc.) informed scholarship on the African diaspora? This course will study these new African migrations, as well as revisit the histories of older settlement patterns. This will be a service learning course.
Students who have taken courses in Africana Studies, Asian Studies, Global Studies, Latin American Studies, or International Relations are particularly encouraged to apply.
Globalization and Migration
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Spring
Globalization sheds light on the paradoxical opening of borders to flows of capital, goods, services, and culture around the world, and the simultaneous closing of borders to the global movements of people. Indeed, international migration is one of the major processes through which the global political economy is constituted today. This course seeks to engage students in contemporary debates on globalization and migration, paying particular attention to how the “neoliberal” model of globalization both reinforces and challenges traditional understandings of the migration process, the function of borders, the meaning of citizenship and belonging. Readings and discussions will focus on the economic, political, and cultural dimensions of globalization in relation to international migration. We will begin our inquiry with an overview of “the globalization debate” and the structure of the contemporary global political economy. The remainder of the course will address the following questions: What economic, political, and cultural linkages shape international migration flows? How do states attempt to control migration and national borders in an era of globalization? How are global migrations transforming traditional understandings of citizenship and belonging? What rights can migrants claim? We conclude with a critical evaluation of globalization as hegemonic neoliberal order that induces displacement and migration alongside “counterhegemonic” efforts by migrant and labor movements that challenge neoliberalism.
Open to sophomores, juniors, and seniors.
In World Time: Cultural Studies of the Pacific Rim
Level: Open,Lecture
Semester: Year
This course offers an introduction to contemporary literature and film of the Pacific Rim within the framework of interdisciplinary and inter-Asian cultural studies. We will examine how various writers and filmmakers participate in the project of global decolonization, and in so doing, we will try to make good on the “missed opportunity to make the study of a specific area part of the general learning of the world” (Harootunian and Miyoshi). Prominent questions will include the following: How do our perception of the aesthetic qualities of a particular literary or cinematic work function in the multinational context of spectatorship? How do different writers and filmmakers address shared, though not identical, relationships to multinational historical events, such as Japanese imperialism or the Vietnam War? How do issues of race, ethnicity, class, gender, and sexuality manifest in different contexts? How do we trace relationships existing between different locations within the Asia-Pacific region in particular works of art? How do discourses of nationalism, nativism, and civilizationalism contend with attempts to imagine transnational collectivities?
Introduction to Muslim Thought and Cultures
Level: Open,Lecture
Semester: Year
Within the maelstrom of current events, caricatures and apologetics too often supply shortcuts for understanding a world largely unknown to Americans, obscuring rather than informing people of the richness and variety of the traditions of Islam and Muslim cultures. This course will provide an introduction to these rich traditions by addressing the early history of Islam, its foundational texts, and the development of Sunni, Shi‘i, and Sufi thought. In addition to studying the formative and classical periods of Islam, primarily located in the Middle East, we will look to the ways in which Islam spread throughout the world, to such regions as sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, China, Europe, and the United States. Muslims in the Middle East now represent a mere 20 percent of Muslims worldwide; from jihadis to mystics to hip-hop artists, Muslims are not easily categorized. To address how being a Muslim is understood in specific contexts, we will study not only religious texts, but also how Islam and Muslim practices are represented in autobiographies, fiction writing, films, music, and art.
Performing Identities: Class, Ethnicity, Gender, and Race in Contemporary Performance
Level: Open
Semester: Spring
This course will offer students methodologies to think critically about class, ethnicity, gender, and race and the role of performance in reproducing and subverting social constructions of self and other. We will begin by looking at how scholars and political activists have conceptualized class, ethnicity, gender, and race as both historically specific, structured relations of oppression, as well as fields of visual representation. Our discussion will challenge ontological claims about the nature of these social identities, in addition to exploring the ways in which these rubrics of difference intersect and must be thought about in relation to one another. We will apply our theoretical understanding toward examining the underlying assumptions and overt intentions of artists working in a range of performative media, both within popular culture and the avant-garde. We will explore how performances reproduce or subvert ideas about class, ethnicity, gender, and race through the use of stereotypes, drag, humor, irony, and other stylistic choices. Ultimately, our goal in this course will be twofold: to gain an understanding of the limitations and possibilities that contemporary artistic practices have for commenting on social issues and to gain a greater awareness of our own individual responses to performative representations of identity. The course is thus an opportunity for reflecting deeply about ourselves, seeing our experiences and attitudes in relation to broad social constructions and historical trajectories, and, most important, learning how to communicate and discuss our feelings and ideas about controversial subjects in ways that are productive and yet do not seek to hide behind a stifling political correctness. Class work will entail discussions based on readings and audiovisual materials, as well as maintaining a journal. Students will create their own performances as part of their final projects (no previous experience required).
Racial Politics and Political Thought in Twentieth-Century United States
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Year
How have Americans understood race over the last century? How have we defended, accommodated, and/or struggled against racial oppression? How have our racial hierarchies shaped our political institutions, ideas, and loyalties? It is hard to miss the rhetoric of “fairness” and “equality” in American public life. In 1840 Alexis de Tocqueville claimed that “equality of conditions” was the “basic fact” that shaped Americans’ political principles and accounted for “the whole course” of American society. Many twentieth-century American scholars have agreed, arguing that American political development has been largely determined by a fundamental “consensus” around bedrock, liberal values. And today’s American politicians almost universally invoke such values when seeking votes and support for their policies. But it is also hard to miss how frequently the rhetoric doesn’t match the reality. Easily the most glaring example is the fact of racial domination in America’s history and present. Has this been some kind of aberration, to be corrected by hewing more closely to our basic principles? Or does it reveal that America isn’t so “liberal” (or at least not exclusively so) after all? Alternatively, does the logic of our liberalism somehow breed exclusions and oppressions? In this course, we will try to understand the persistence and transformations of racism and racial hierarchy in the United States over the last century, exploring how popular, scientific, and social scientific ideas about race have shaped—and been shaped by—political ideology, party competition, social movements, the welfare state, corporate interests, and international relations. In doing so, we will explore the fundamental questions about America’s political culture outlined above. More important, we will think about what all this means for political action aimed at creating a truly inclusive, democratic, and just society.
Rethinking the Racial Politics of the New Deal and Cold War Citizenship, Public Policy, and Social Welfare
Level: Intermediate
Semester: Year
Was the New Deal a major turning point in American history? The New Deal transformed the meaning of American citizenship. It introduced universal social welfare as an essential component of “social citizenship.” American citizenship was enriched from simple voting rights to social welfare rights that entitled citizens to a vast safety net of social programs from Social Security to the GI Bill. Programs such as the GI Bill had dramatic educational, cultural, and economic consequences as well. The GI Bill dramatically enlarged the American middle class, transforming millions of urban workers into college-educated suburban professionals and businesspeople. However, today scholars are debating the meaning and substance of the “universality” of those programs. They have questioned to what extent was that social citizenship “raced” and “gendered.” Did the New Deal trigger “identity politics” by excluding some women, African Americans, and Latinos from its new rights and economic bounty? Some scholars suggest that the New Deal programs that propelled some “white” groups into the middle-class plunged “nonwhite” groups into the underclass. This course explores the wealth of political, social, cultural, psychological, and economic issues at the heart of that rich debate. The seminar will draw on comparative history, looking not only at different ethnic groups but also exploring differences of “race and nation” between the United States, Germany, South Africa, and Brazil. In the United States, we will pay special attention to the impact those political and policy dynamics had on the “racial formation” of “white,” “black,” “Chicano,” and “Nuyorican” identities between the New Deal and the cold war and on the trajectory of American politics up to the 2008 elections.
Visions/Revisions: Issues in U.S. Women’s History
Level: Advanced
Semester: Year
This seminar surveys path-breaking studies of U.S. women’s history and related subjects, including women’s lives beyond the United States. Course readings, both scholarship and political treatises, exemplify major trends in feminist discourse since the 1960’s, from early challenges to androcentric worldviews to the current stress on differences among women. Class discussions will range from fundamental questions—What is feminism? Is “women” a meaningful category?—to theoretical, interpretive, and methodological debates among women’s historians. The course is designed to help advanced students of women’s history to clarify research interests by assessing the work of their predecessors. M.A. candidates will also use the course to define thesis projects.
A graduate course open to qualified seniors and graduate students.