Doctoral Seminar in Race and Ethnicity

Catalog description

What is the difference between race and ethnicity? In what ways can we theorize the difference (if it exists)? How does modern racism work? And how does immigration change a nation's racial landscape? This graduate course surveys classic and contemporary writings on race and ethnicity mainly within the sociological tradition. We begin with Weber and some non-canonized classics, including the works of W.E.B. DuBois and Franz Fannon to understand how the study of race and ethnicity emerged in Social Science as a contrast to the biological determinist scholarship of the time. We pay attention to the way that social scientists emphasized the role of culture, structure, and status. From there we proceed to examine the more contemporary arguments, including uncovering the various mechanisms that undergird the (re)production or transformation of racial and ethnic boundaries. We spend time examining the literature on inequality and questions about the significance of race and racism. In addition, we assess how assimilation and racialization developed over time. We then spend time thinking about how to consider race and ethnicity in research designs. Finally, we end with looking towards the future, including how technology is changing modern conceptualizations of race and the potential of policy to mitigate the effects of systemic racism.