Race and Society: South Africa and the US, 1890-present

Catalog description

Scholars, pundits and historical actors have long drawn parallels between the United States & South Africa-two countries founded on the premises of racial inequality. This course explores the machinations of race from the quickening of industrial development to present. We will consider the benefits and pitfalls of thinking comparatively. Topics include segregation, transatlantic cultural exchanges, living apartheid and Jim Crow, government surveillance of political opponents, the American anti-apartheid movement, mass incarceration and privatization of prisons, memory and the struggles for social change as well as the persistence of racial inequality in two country's contemporary societies.