Race, Ethnicity, Controversy

Catalog description

Coverage of police violence. Condemnations of Critical Race Theory. Book bans. "Kung flu." In recent years, current issues around race have proliferated, and with them, complex layers of discourse and controversy. This course examines current issues around race through the twin lenses of rhetoric and ethnic studies, asking how power is expressed through rhetorics of race and controversy. What are the communicative practices involved in framing or responding to racial violence, prejudice, and controversy? How do these practices harness various cultural, political, and historical forces, and to what effect? How do these discourses contribute to racialization, and where, and how, are differential distributions of power being expressed? We will seek to understand discourses around these issues and the backgrounds of various debates, from policing and abolition, to recurring anti-Asian racism, to affirmative action debates, to transracial adoption. Students will learn to analyze discourses around race rhetorically, identify structures of power at work in these discourses, and produce a final paper analyzing the rhetorics of a current issue or controversy around race. Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or ( 76-106 and 76-107 ) or ( 76-108 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-108 and 76-107 )