A. COURSE DESCRIPTION
This interdisciplinary graduate seminar, offered in conjunction with the Yale Center for the Study of Race, Indigeneity, and Transnational Migration (RITM), examines relational, comparative and intersectional scholarship on racial identity, racial formation, and race-based social movements. These frameworks consider the racialization and formation of subordinated groups in relation to one another. By studying race relationally and intersectionally, and through a shared field of meaning and power, the seminar makes visible the connections among such subordinated groups and the logic that underpins the forms of inclusion and dispossession they face.
The seminar engages recent work in American studies, gender and sexuality studies, history, cultural studies, ethnic studies, and the humanistic social sciences to build theoretical and thematic fluency around a wide range of topics, including:
• Indigeneity, colonialism and racialization;
• Relational frameworks of race, gender and sexuality
• Multiracial cultural imaginaries and performances;
• Intersectionality and Black feminism
• Legal productions of race, citizenship and social hierarchy;
• Third World, anti-colonial and women of color politics;
• Afro-pessimism and frameworks of specificity and exceptionalism;
• Diasporic and transnational racial formation.
Other highlights of the seminar include a class visit to Columbia University School of Law on April 18-19 to attend in a conference on intersectionality; a series of visiting scholars in the seminar co-sponsored with RITM; and an opportunity to engage curators at the Beinecke Library with expertise in source materials that relate to the course and to student research interests.
B. READINGS AND REQUIRED TEXTS
As the syllabus indicates, most of the weekly readings will be drawn from a combination of scholarly articles and book chapters. Three books are also required—please acquire through an online retailer or Yale Libraries:
• Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents, Duke University Press, 2015.
• Cherríe Moraga and Gloria Anzaldúa edited, This Bridge Called My Back, Fourth Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color, 4th Edition, (State University of New York Press, 2015).
• Natalia Molina, Daniel Martinez HoSang, and Ramon Gutiérrez edited, Relational Formations of Race: Theory, Method and Practice (Oakland: UC Press, 2019)
C. ASSIGNMENTS (ALL OF THE ASSIGNMENTS BELOW MUST BE COMPLETED IN ORDER TO PASS THE COURSE)
1. WEEKLY READING RESPONSE PAPERS. Beginning Week 2, students will submit a 1-2 page response paper synthesizing the key insights and questions from the readings. Detailed directions will be provided at the first seminar meeting. These papers must be submitted via Canavs by 5 PM on Tuesday, the day before the seminar meeting. (30% of final grade).
2. TEXT PRESENTATION. Beginning Week 3, students will sign up in advance to provide a framework for the weekly discussion, based on their engagement with the readings and the themes raised in the weekly response papers. (10% of final grade)
3. PRACTICUM & KEYWORDS ESSAYS. Students will contribute to a Keywords on Intersectionality and Relationality wiki page and write three short (750 word) essays applying course concepts to analyze particular artistic, cultural, and political texts and events (50% of final grade).
4. PARTICIPATION AND ATTENDANCE. Attendance is taken every class; advanced reading and participation are critical. You must notify the instructor in advance if you anticipate missing a class meeting. Attendance is also required at all of the RITM lectures associated with the seminar (10% of final grade).
• FEB 5, 4pm: Tao Leigh Goffe (Cornell)
• FEB 26, 4pm: Jodi Byrd (University of Illinois Champagne-Urbana); Aloysha Goldstein (University of New Mexico); Chandan Reddy (University of Washington)
• MAR 4, 4pm: Christina Heatherton, Barnard College
• APRIL 8, 4pm: Kehaulani Kauanui, Wesleyan University
Participation in the APRIL 17-18: Mini conference on Intersectionality at Columbia University School of Law with Kimberle Crenshaw is not required but highly encouraged.
The event will begin in the late afternoon of Friday April 17 and continue from 9-5 on Saturday April 18. Transportation to NYC will be provided and a housing subsidy may be available.
COURSE SCHEDULE
WEEK ONE: January 15, Course overview—‘Accompaniment’ and the Social Production of Knowledge
Please read in advance:
• Barbara Tomlinson and George Lipsitz. "American Studies as Accompaniment." American Quarterly 65, no. 1 (2013): 1-30.
• Daniel Martinez HoSang and Natalia Molina, “Introduction” in Relational Formations of Race (University of California Press).
WEEK TWO: January 22, Theoretical frameworks
Readings:
• Michael Omi and Howard Winant Racial Formation in the United States, Second edition (selections)
• George Lipsitz, Kelley Lytle Hernandez, and George Sánchez “Race as a relational theory: Roundtable discussion” in Relational Formations of Race.
• Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick A. Ferguson, “Introduction” in Strange Affinities: The Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization, (Duke, 2011).
• Antonio T. Tiongson Jr. “Afro-Asian Inquiry and the Problematics of Comparative Critique.” Critical Ethnic Studies, vol. 1, no. 2, 2015, pp. 33–58.
• Brittney Cooper. "Intersectionality." In Lisa Disch, Lisa and Mary Hawkesworth edited, The Oxford Handbook of Feminist Theory: Oxford University Press, August 06, 2015.
WEEK THREE: January 29, Solidarity and Complicity
Readings:
• Andrea Smith, “Indigeneity, Settler Colonialism, White Supremacy,” in Martinez-HoSang, LaBennett, and Pulido edited, Racial Formation in the Twenty-First Century (University of California Press, 2012): 66-90.
• George Lipsitz, “Like Crabs in a Barrel: Why Interethnic Racism Matters Now.” In American Studies in a Moment of Danger. (Minnesota, 2001).
• Robin Kelley, “Roaring from the East: Third World Dreaming” in Freedom Dreams: The Black Radical Imagination. (Beacon, 2002).
• Roderick Ferguson, “The Relational Revolutions of Anti-Racist Formations,” in Relational Formations of Race.
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• Tiffany Willoughby-Herard, “‘The Whatever that Survived’: Thinking Racialized Immigration Through Blackness and the After-Life of Slavery,” Relational Formations of Race.
• Laura Pulido, "Geographies of race and ethnicity III: Settler colonialism and nonnative people of color," (Progress in Human Geography, 2018).
WEEK FOUR: February 5, Afro-Asian Genealogies
Guest scholar: Tao Leigh Goffe, Cornell University
Readings:
• Tao Leigh Goffe, "‘Guano in their destiny’: Race, Geology, and a Philosophy of Indenture," Amerasia Journal, June 2019.
• Tao Leigh Goffe, “Sugarwork: The Gastropoetics of Afro-Asia After the Plantation,” Asian Diasporic Visual Cultures and the Americas, April, 2019.
• Tao Leigh Goffe, "Albums of Inclusion: The Photographic Poetics of Caribbean Chinese Visual Kinship," Small Axe, 56, July 2018.
• Vijay Prashad, Everybody Was Kung Fu Fighting: Afro-Asian Connections and the Myth of Cultural Purity (“Forethought;” “Strange Career of Xenophobia” “Coolie Purana,” “Kung Fusion” available online through Yale Libraries.
WEEK FIVE: February 12, Women of Color Feminism and Relational Praxis
Readings:
• Cherie Moraga and Gloria Anzaldua, edited This Bridge Called My Back, Fourth Edition: Writings by Radical Women of Color (SUNY Press, 2015).
• M. Jacqui Alexander, “Remembering This Bridge Called My Back, Remembering Ourselves” in Pedagogies of Crossing: Meditations on Feminism, Sexual Politics, Memory, and the Sacred, Duke University Press, 2006
• Lorretta Ross, “The Color of Choice: White Supremacy and Reproductive Justice.” SisterSong
WEEK SIX: February 19, Intersectionality and Black Feminism
Readings:
• Kimberlé Williams Crenshaw, Intersectionality: Essential Writings (selections)
• Devon Carbado, “Colorblind Intersectionality” in Crenshaw, Harris, HoSang and Lipsitz edited Seeing Race Again: Countering Colorblindness Across the Disciplines
• Anna Carastathis, Intersectionality: Origins, Contestations, Horizons. (University of Nebraska Press, 2016.) (selections)
• Patricia Hill Collins and Sirma Bilge Intersectionality. (Polity Press, 2016). (selections)
WEEK SEVEN: February 26, Economies of Dispossession and Disturbed Relationalities
Guest scholars: Jodi Byrd (University of Illinois Champagne-Urbana); Aloysha Goldstein (University of New Mexico); Manu Karuka (Barnard College)
Readings:
• Byrd, Goldstein, Melamed, and Reddy, edited “Economies of Dispossession: Indigeneity, Race, Capitalism.” Social Text 36(2), 2018.
• Alyosha Goldstein, “Entangled Dispossessions: Race and Colonialism in the Historical Present.” In Relational Formations of Race.
• Jodi Melamed, “Racial Capitalism.” Critical Ethnic Studies
• Manu Karuka, “Remembering the Golden Spike Ceremony” Boston Review, May 2019.
WEEK EIGHT: March 4, Relationality Across Borders
Guest scholar: Christina Heatherton, Barnard College
Readings:
• Heatherton, The Color Line and the Class Struggle: The Mexican Revolution, Internationalism, and the American Century (University of California Press, (forthcoming)
SPRING BREAK – NO CLASSES
WEEK NINE: March 25, Intersectionality, Relationality, and the Law
Readings:
• Leti Volpp, “Feminist, Sexual, and Queer Citizenship.” The Oxford Handbook on Citizenship, edited by Ayelet Shachar, Rainer Bauboeck, Irene Bloemraad, and Maarten Vink, Oxford University Press, 2017.
• Leti Volpp “The Indigenous As Alien” in the UC Irvine Law Review (2015)
• Devon W. Carbado & Kimberle Crenshaw “An Intersectional Critique of Tiers of Scrutiny: Beyond 'Either/Or' Approaches to Equal Protection.” (129 The Yale Law Journal Forum 108 (2019).
• K-Sue Park, Self-Deportation Nation, 132 Harv. L. Rev. 1878-1941 (2019)
WEEK TEN: April 1, Historical context, intimacies, and formations
Readings:
• Lisa Lowe, The Intimacies of Four Continents, Duke University Press, 2015.
• Jeff Yamashita, “Relational Racialization of Settler Colonial White Supremacy: A Historical Case Study of Japanese American World War II soldiers in the U.S. South.” Relational Formations of Race
• Perla M. Guerrero, “Vietnamese Refugees and Mexican Immigrants: Southern Regional Racialization in the Late Twentieth Century.” Relational Formations of Race
Guest speaker: Lisa Lowe
WEEK ELEVEN: April 8, Settler Colonialism and Race
Guest scholar, Kehaulani Kauanui, Wesleyan University
Readings:
• J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, "“A structure, not an event”: Settler Colonialism and Enduring Indigeneity," Lateral 5.1 (2016).
• J. Kēhaulani Kauanui, “Tracing Historical Specificity: Race and the Colonial Politics of (In)Capacity.” American Quarterly, Volume 69, Number 2, June 2017
• Patrick Wolfe, “Land, Labor and Difference: Elementary Structures of Race.” American Historical Review, 106(3) June 2001: 866-905
• Catherine S. Ramírez “Indians and Negroes in Spite of Themselves: Puerto Rican Students at the Carlisle Indian Industrial School.” Relational Formations of Race
WEEK TWELVE: April 15, Relational and intersectional frameworks in contemporary policy
Readings:
• Laura E. Enriquez, “Border-Hopping Mexicans, Law-Abiding Asians, and Racialized Illegality: Analyzing Undocumented College Students Experiences through a Relational Lens.” Relational Formations of Race
• Michael Rodríguez-Muñiz, “Racial Arithmetic: Ethnoracial Politics in a Relational Key.” Relational Formations of Race
• Julie Lee Merseth, “The Relational Positioning of Arab and Muslim Americans in Post-9/11 Racial Politics.” Relational Formations of Race
• Claire Jean Jim, “Are Asians the New Blacks? Affirmative Action, Anti-Blackness, and the ‘Sociometry’ of Race. Du Bois Review: Social Science Research on Race, 2018, 1-28.
April 17-18 Intersectionality mini-conference, Columbia Univ School of Law
WEEK THIRTEEN: April 22 Course summary
Readings TBA
OTHER COURSE POLICIES
1. CLASSROOM CONDUCT & CLIMATE. We are all accountable to create a climate of mutual respect and engagement in the classroom. While differences of opinion, perspective and analysis are important and will be encouraged, common courtesy as well as University policy prohibit personal attacks and discriminatory conduct.
2. ATTENDANCE. You are expected to arrive on time and stay for the entire class and participate fully in class discussions. Please contact the instructor in advance to request an accommodation for any anticipated absences.
3. ELECTRONIC DEVICES. Wireless devices and cell phones must be turned off prior to class.
4. ACADEMIC INTEGRITY. All work submitted in this course must be your own and produced exclusively for this course. The use of sources (ideas, quotations, paraphrases) must be properly acknowledged and documented. Penalties for plagiarism can include a failing grade for the course. Guidelines on proper citation practices and avoiding plagiarism can be found here:
http://writing.yalecollege.yale.edu/advice-students/usingsources/ and here: http://ctl.yale.edu/writing/using-sources/understanding-and-avoiding-plagiarism/what-plagiarism.
5. ACCOMDATIONS. If there are aspects of the instruction or design of this course that result in disability related barriers to your participation, please notify the instructor as soon as possible to discuss an accommodation. You may also wish to contact the Yale Resource Office on Disability http://rod.yale.edu/course-accommodation. The ROD is located at 35 Broadway, Room 222 and can be reached at 2-2324.
6. SYLLABUS CHANGES: Changes to the syllabus may be made during the term and will be announced in class and on Canvas.
7. LATE SUBMISSION POLICY: Generally, a letter grade will be deducted for any assignments submitted after the due date.
8. DIGITAL RESOURCES: Relevant class materials posted on Canvas are indicated. Students are expected to check the course site regularly.