Skin Deep: Reading Race, Reading Form

Catalog description

There is a movement away from symptomatic/paranoid readings of literature. In 2009, Stephen Best/Sharon Marcus pitched this in their call for surface readings, which deals with what is manifest/present in texts, rather than the latent/concealed. I hope to get beyond politically-instrumental readings of literature/to thinking in a sustained fashion about language/form/aesthetics of race. The seminar will divide between reading histories/theories of race (obsession with physical variation as race and technologies of seeing that we use to read race)/working through a range of post-nationalist works of literature/sharpening our understanding of reading as a mean-making event. Limited to Grad Students.