Whiteness. Race and the shifting codes of social privilege

Timetable

Tuesday, 1.30-3.00 pm

Room 046, Collegium Heliodori, Grunwaldzka 6

Module aim (aims)

The aim of the course is to examine the concept of whiteness and its role in different historical, social and cultural contexts. The course will draw on theoretical frameworks elaborated in "whiteness studies" and will present the origins and development of this research field as well as its links to a wider spectrum of ethnicity, race, class and nationalism studies. Referring to the works of sociologists, historians, anthropologists, literary theorists and philosophers we will show how whiteness has organized and defined different systems of social privilege. We will point to the ways in which these systems are perpetuated by cultural patterns of valorisation present in Western and non-Western societies. We will also discuss the issue of whiteness in connection with the following topics: the genesis of an idea of white race and white supremacy, culturally constructed perceptions of the body and ideals of beauty, whiteness and class, whiteness and gender, whiteness and colorism. During the classes we will make use of scholarly works as well as popular representations and problematizations of whiteness that can be found in literature, visual arts, film or advertising.

Pre-requisites in terms of knowledge, skills and social competences (where relevant)

Syllabus

Week 1: Introduction

Week 2: White privilege and the persistence of racism

Week 3: Phenomenology of whiteness

Week 4: The invention of the white race

Week 5: Trajectories of modern racism

Week 6: Examining whiteness: black perspective

Week 7: Examining whiteness: white perspective

Week 8: Colorism I: race classifications under apartheid (South Africa)

Week 9: Colorism II: skin color stratification in the USA

Week 10: Colorism III: “skin toning” in Africa

Week 11: Shifting boundaries of whiteness I: Jews

Week 12: Shifting boundaries of whiteness II: Arabs

Week 13: Shifting boundaries of whiteness III: the Irish and Poles in the USA

Week 14: Peripheral whiteness: Eastern Europe

Week 15: Conclusion: whiteness beyond racism?

Reading list

• Ahmed, S. (2007). A phenomenology of whiteness. Feminist Theory, 8(2), 149–168.
• Allen, T. W. (1994). The invention of the white race. Verso.
• Asante, G. (2016). Glocalized whiteness: Sustaining and reproducing whiteness through “skin toning” in post-colonial Ghana. Journal of International and Intercultural Communication, 9(2), 87–103.
• Baldwin, J. (2013). The fire next time. Vintage.
• Bowker, G. C., & Star, S. L. (2000). The Case of Race Classification and Reclassification under Apartheid. In Sorting Things Out: Classification and Its Consequences. The MIT Press.
• Dyer, R. (1997). Essays on Race and Culture. Routledge New York.
• Eddo-Lodge, R. (2019). Why I’m No Longer Talking to White People About Race (Reprint edition). Bloomsbury Publishing.
• Fanon, F. (2008). Black Skin, White Masks (Revised edition). Grove Press.
• Frankenberg, R. (1993). White women, race matters: The social construction of whiteness. University of Minnesota Press.
• Gilman, S. L. (2009). Are Jews White?: Or, The History of the Nose Job. In Theories of Race and Racism (2nd edition). Routledge.
• Griffin, J. H., & Bonazzi, R. (2010). Black Like Me (50th Anniversary ed. edition). Berkley.
• Gualtieri, S. M. A. (2004). Strange Fruit? Syrian Immigrants, Extralegal Violence and Racial Formation in the Jim Crow South. Arab Studies Quartely, 26(3).
• hooks, (1991). Representing Whiteness in the Black Imagination. W L. Grossberg, C. Nelson, & P. Treichler (eds.), Cultural Studies. Routledge.
• Hunter, M. (2007). The Persistent Problem of Colorism: Skin Tone, Status, and Inequality. Sociology Compass, 1(1), 237–254.
• Ignatiev, N. (2009). How the Irish became white. Routledge.
• Imre, A. (2005). Whiteness in post-socialist Eastern Europe: The time of the Gypsies, the end of race. In Alfred J. Lopez (ed.), Postcolonial Whiteness: Critical Reader on Race and Empire. State University of New York Press.
• Morrison, T. (1993). Playing in the Dark: Whiteness and the Literary Imagination. Vintage.
• Roediger, D. R. (2006). Working toward whiteness: How America’s immigrants became white: The strange journey from Ellis Island to the suburbs. Hachette UK.
• Traverso, E. (2003). The Origins of Nazi Violence (J. Lloyd, Tłum.; First Edition). The New Press.
• West, C. (2001). Genealogy of Modern Racism. In P. Essed & T. Goldberg David (eds.), Race Critical Theories. Text and Context. Wiley-Blackwell.