Rhetorics of Race & Empire

Catalog description

The construction and enforcement of racial hierarchies has been a central phenomenon in empire-building around the world. This class takes as its main focus the relationship between imperialism and race, especially in, but not limited to, the United States. How has the U.S. justified imperial expansion around the world-military, economic, and cultural? How have its actions triggered the movements and migrations of populations, and how have those movements and displacements been explained? What cultural shifts around racial meanings have occurred, here and abroad, as a result of U.S. imperialism? How has the role of the U.S. in relation to the rest of the world, particularly peripheries and the global South, been narrated? We will take a special interest in the role of language in constructing and perpetuating racial meanings in the context of empire, and in the everyday communicative practices that both shape and have been shaped by imperial impulses. Students will learn to think critically about the presence of such discourses in everyday life, and produce a final paper or project analyzing a narrative of their own choosing in which race and empire intersect. Prerequisites: 76-101 or 76-102 or ( 76-107 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-108 and 76-106 ) or ( 76-107 and 76-108 )