Multiracial Identity in U.S

3 Credits · Level: Undergraduate

This course will explore the evolution of perceptions of racial mixing in the United States. It will examine the scientific and popular understandings of race that contributed to two contradictory typologies of thinking about multiraciality: notions of hybrid degeneracy and notions of hybrid vigor. The desire to document, classify, and characterize different racial types was rooted in an evolutionary schema that was fundamentally undergirded by assumptions of monoracial boundaries and separations between groups. We will revisit scientific theories of human difference, including the polygenism versus monogenism debates of the nineteenth century; renderings in popular culture of the mixed race experience such as the tragic mulatta trope; collaborations between biologists, geneticists, and social scientists to clarify scientific knowledge on race such as the UNESCO statement; and more contemporary celebratory portrayals of multiraciality. Understanding these shifts and moments will help us trace the framework and context within which multiracial identities have come to be asserted and constructed in the United States.