The Colonial Invention of Race

Catalog description

Where did the idea of race come from? In this course, we will examine the history of race and racism as it emerged through European imperialism beginning in the early modern period. We will also analyze how these race theories intersected with, and were informed by, constructions of gender, sexuality, and class. To do so, we will examine works ranging from legal documents, colonial policies, travelogues, anthropological accounts, visual representations, critical essays, philosophy, and literature. Particular attention will be paid to how theories of race functioned in French imperialism and its colonies. We will interrogate how these policies mapped phenotypical difference onto hierarchies of the human and civilization in order to justify dehumanization and enslavement. While critical race theory as it emerged within the U.S. is crucial to many of the works we will examine, we will focus on how the idea of race functioned in relations between colony and European metropole as a way to historicize what is now referred to as postcolonialism.