The course explores both the ideas and realities of race in the western world, serving as an introduction for students to these multifaceted and complex debates. Making use of both theoretical work and literature that builds on embodied experiences, the course aims to engage students’ own perspectives on the meanings of racial categories, racism, and self-perception. Building on the notion that race is a social construct and not a given, the course will constantly make students question what it means to be who we are when the world that we live in is framed by concepts we don’t necessarily have control over. To hone students’ ability to grasp ideas that are perhaps a bit too foreign, the course will take a grand thematical approach to the subject, focusing on a few main topics such as the state, science, and popular culture; and providing case studies that will focus on particular nations and episodes, allowing us an in-depth approach when needed. We will, for instance, discuss the role race – as an idea - played in postcolonial efforts to produce national narratives, how scientific racism and the myth that humans’ skull size could indicate intelligence was born, the narratives behind World War II, and why in the past decade curly hair became a beauty industry darling in the Americas.
Drawing on sources ranging from scientific papers and government correspondence to photographs, pamphlets, and police reports of "freak shows," Zimmerman demonstrates how German imperialism opened the door to antihumanism. While anthropology’s expansion of the scope of humanistic study represents a democratization of the human sciences, its displacement of hermeneutic notions of understanding and interpretive empathy with models of objective observation borrowed from the natural sciences devalued the human both as an inquirer and as a subject of inquiry. As Germans interacted more frequently with peoples and objects from far-flung cultures, they were forced to reevaluate not just those peoples, but also the construction of German identity itself.
This book offers a survey of humanities and social science scholarship in the field of Afro-Latin American Studies. It introduces Afro-Latin American history, covering the period from 1500 to the present. The book begins with the deeply embedded inequalities that have shaped the development of Afro-Latin American societies over time. Then it moves to the realm of politics. The following part examines black thought and action in various cultural fields: literature, visual arts, music, religion, and cultural geographies. The book ends with an examination of the role of transnational connections and spaces in Afro-Latin American life.
This book reveals the central role of African American soldiers in the global conflict and how they, along with race activists and ordinary citizens, committed to fighting for democracy at home and beyond. Using a diverse range of sources, the book reclaims the legacy of African American soldiers and veterans and connects their history to issues such as the obligations of citizenship, combat and labor, diaspora and internationalism, homecoming and racial violence, "New Negro" militancy, and African American memories of the war. It demonstrates that the history of African Americans during World War I, and the meaning of American democracy, is incomplete without the history of African American servicemen.
This book focuses on children’s literature and the power of stories in education. The title essay, a consideration of Babar the elephant, raises the question of what to do with a charming and widely-loved book whose messages need to be challenged. Four other essays are also included in this book, throughout which Kohl provides new perspectives on well-known children’s stories, highlighting instances of racism, sexism, and condescension that detract from the tale being told. He provides strategies for detecting bias in other works for young people and offers powerful ideas for better ways to tell children stories.
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