Block 2, 2002
ACS 185: INTRODUCTION TO AMERICAN CULTURAL STUDIES/
HY 200: RACE IN AMERICA
Anne Hyde & Elizabeth Feder
COURSE DESCRIPTION
Race and ethnicity form a complex core of personal and national identity for Americans and are thus frequently at the center of heated debates in American civic culture. This course explores the historic and contemporary ways that race and ethnicity have both been shaped by and have shaped American culture. Our goals are to help students think critically about the construction of "difference;" to consider the impact such constructions have both on people’s lives and on society; and to imagine ways to move beyond the inequalities and injustices that burden our society.
SCHEDULE OF ASSIGNMENTS
CLASS WILL MEET DAILY AT 9:00.
WEEK ONE The Social Construction of Difference
MONDAY Talking about Race
Peggy McIntosh, "White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack"
film: Skin Deep
TUESDAY Race as Experience
Moraga, "La Guera;" Chan, "You’re Short, Besides!" Mickelson and Smith, "Education and the Struggle Against Race, Class, and Gender Inequality;" Castellano, "Canto, Locura y Poesia;" Williams, "reminiscence of a Post-Integration Kid;"
Steele, "The Content of Our Character," excerpt
** Thought paper #1 due in class
WEDNESDAY Race as Construction
Omi & Winant, Racial Formations, excerpt
Hollinger, Postethnic America, excerpt
THURSDAY Racial Identity
film showing: Pow-Wow Highway
** Thought paper #1 rewrite due in class
FRIDAY Race as Cultural Depiction
films: Ethnic Notions and Color Adjustments (scheduled showings on W & Th nights, Th aft.)
DeMott, The Trouble With Friendship
WEEK TWO The Historical Construction of Race
MONDAY Race and Labor Systems
Morgan, American Slavery, American Freedom, excerpt 1, 2, 11, 12, 13, 15 & 18
TUESDAY The Promises and Failures of Reconstruction:
Nation Building, 1890-1930
WEDNESDAY Race, Immigration, and Ethnicity, 1890-1930
Jacobsen, Whiteness of a Different Color
THURSDAY Race and War
> TBA
FRIDAY Analytic Paper Assignment Due 4pm
WEEK THREE Making a Difference
SUNDAY Pizza and viewing 5:30pm
film: Eyes on the Prize, Pt.1& 2
MONDAY The Civil Rights Movement: Tackling de jure segregation
Martin, Brown v. Board of Education
Thought paper # 2 due in class
TUESDAY The Civil Rights Movement: from de jure to de facto demands
Eldridge Cleaver, Soul on Ice, excerpt
Gutierrez, The Making of a Chicano Militant, excerpt
WEDNESDAY Free Speech? Assaultive Speech
Intro to Words That Wound
Catalyst issue and aftermath
THURSDAY Redistricting and Voting Rights
Lani Guinier, The Tyranny of the Majority, excerpt 1, 3, 4, 5 , notes
Gregory Palast, "Florida’s ‘Disappeared Voters’: Disfranchised by the GOP’ and ‘Scrub Helps Shrub’
film: Eyes on the Prize, Pt. 5, "Mississippi: Is This America?"
FRIDAY Affirmative Action
Bowen and Bok, The Shape of the River, excerpt
Packet on affirmative action - 1, 2, 3
Thought paper # 2 rewrite due at 4pm
WEEK FOUR
MONDAY Nativism and the New Immigrants
T.C. Boyle, The Tortilla Curtain
TUESDAY Reading Day
WEDNESDAY Final Project Due at Noon