Listed in: First Year Seminar, as FYSE-110
Benigno R. Sanchez-Eppler (Section 01)
This first-year seminar explores the social construction of race and ethnicity in the United States, the national dependence on early and contemporary immigration, the emergence of U.S.-based ethnic and/or racial identities, the different patterns of racialization practiced throughout the history of the nation, and the tension between the realities of racial inequality and the national projections of democratic equality and equal protection under the law. We look at the evolution of race and ethnicity theories, at the relationship between overt and covert expressions of racism, and discuss at length the difference and relationship between racism as a personal attitude and racism as a system of privilege and disadvantage based on race.
The course will provide a safe space for inquiry into the racial, ethnic and economic data of the students' own census tract, public school catchment, and congressional district. It will discuss affirmative action with specific attention to Amherst College and the two Amicus Briefs it sent to the Supreme Court in less than a decade. We will make room—in weekly writing and daily conversations—for honest and civil discussions at the intersections of race, and religion, gender and class, real estate and intermarriage. We will discuss what kind of education or penal system we want to finance for other people's children and why, and what kind of medical care should be made accessible or inaccessible and to whom. One of the main purposes of the course is to recognize that the harder it is to talk about the issues that divide the nation, the more important it is to develop forms of inquiry and communication that allow us to describe and analyze social problems and social opportunities, hoping to maximize our participation in the search for political, economic and cultural responses to those problems and opportunities.
Fall semester. Visiting Lecturer B. Sánchez-Eppler.
Section 01
Tu 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM WEBS 217
Th 11:30 AM - 12:50 PM WEBS 217
This is preliminary information about books for this course. Please contact your instructor or the Academic Coordinator for the department, before attempting to purchase these books.
| ISBN | Title | Publisher | Author(s) | Comment | Book Store | Price |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rethinking the Color Line | McGraw-Hill, 2012 | C.A. Gallagher | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Everyday Forms of Whiteness | Rowman & Littlefield, 2011 | M.E.L. Bush | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Race in the 21st Century: Ethnographic Approaches | Oxford, 2010 | J. Hartigan, Jr. | Amherst Books | TBD | ||
| Souls of Black Folk | Du Bois | Amherst Books | TBD |
These books are available locally at Amherst Books.