Race and Empire in the Hispanic Atlantic

Catalog description

The course examines the origins of race and what might make race one of the modern period’s more salient categories. The class focuses on the late medieval and early modern periods in the Hispanic Atlantic, but always with an eye to contemporary racial politics, trying to underscore the long history that makes questions of race today such thorny, complex issues. Through careful analysis of cultural artifacts from interdisciplinary perspectives, we will attempt to tease out the way religion, culture, ethnicity and race form the crucible in which Spain crafted a specifically European brand of modernity. Additionally, the class explores how it is that imperialism, for all the ways it might seem to be a thing of the past, structures our experience of the world today. Satisfies Area IV for the Hispanic Studies major. Satisfies the cultural diversity requirement. Prerequisites & Notes Any two literature or culture courses. Limited to juniors and seniors. Priority will be given to majors, then minors.