Race, Political Categorization, and Political Activism in the United States

Will trace American political, economic, and cultural institutions as both products of race and contributors to racial formation. The course proceeds chronologically, exploring race formation in the antebellum period, the Civil War, the long civil rights movement, and the post-civil rights era. Students will learn the role that race plays in American politics, and of the role American politics plays in shaping race. How do we best theorize race in the United States? Can race be separated from American liberalism? What federal and state institutions make race politically salient? Which institutions have proved to be helpful in combating that salience?