- Race and Ethnicity in American Thought

Catalog description

What are we referring to when we use the terms "race" and "ethnicity"? Biology? Culture? Faith? Skin color? Nationality? History?  What makes categories based on apparently natural differences useful? How has the meaning of "race" and "ethnicity" changed over time? This course addresses these questions by examining how intellectuals, social scientists, the law, and cultural producers in America have historically defined and thought about race, ethnicity, "blackness," and "whiteness."