Summer Session - Colorado College

This seminar will address the evolving representations of race and race relations, especially how they are most recently portrayed by the media as our latest election campaign for the presidency unfolds. Questions to be addressed are: How is it that Barak Obama’s campaign “transcends race?” How does this language change our understanding of race and racial inequality? How has the media transformed the idea of race from an unequal power relation to one perceived as merely a style, symbol or commodity? Has this process created a narrative of race where many now believe the desired goal of racial equality has been acknowledged, addressed, and achieved? In addition to looking at how the media has treated race in the current presidential election, Professor Gallagher will discuss his own work on issues of “incidental racism” and how racial difference and racial inequality are viewed as a function of culture. This session will include a light buffet dinner.

Charles A. Gallagher is associate professor of sociology at Georgia State University. His research focuses on racial and social inequality, immigration, urban sociology and the ways in which the media, the state and popular culture construct, shape, and disseminate ideas of race. He has published articles on the sociological functions of colorblind political narratives, race theory, and how one’s ethnic history shapes perceptions of privilege. He has been honored with four teaching awards, including the Lloyd E. Worner Teacher of the Year at Colorado College in 1997.

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