English: Race & Ethn. in US Lit Study

Introductory courses addressing the representation and construction of race in literature and/or the contributions of ethnically diverse writers to the American culture. May repeat for credit with different content. Topics vary by offering; periodic offering at intervals that may exceed four years. Cross-listed with: CRES 1821.

Open to Degree and PACE students Crosslisted with CRES 1821 C Total enrollment= 50

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: 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 with a primary focus on the African American experience in relation to whiteness, reading and discussing the work of writers and scholars who have grappled with the nuances and complexities of the black/white color line (and color lines within black culture) as both fiction and social fact. In addition to fiction, memoir, history, and polemic, we’ll also examine visual culture, film and media, and music as realms of racial representation and discourse.

Careful reading; maximum effort on every assignment; active participation in class discussions and activities; dedication to creating a productive and joyful classroom environment.

Based on class attendance and participation; in-class informal writing; formal essays; oral presentations.