Why should we study race? Race does not “exist” in any physical or biological sense. The genes that dictate our skin color, our hair color, the shape of our eyes or our nose—these genes do not come in some neat little bundle that tells us who belongs to which group. Indeed, over history and still today there has not been a consensus on how to classify people into races or even how many races exist. However, race is extremely real in its effects on our lives as individuals and as members of society. By studying race, along with ethnicity (an idea which is often confused or conflated with race), we can unravel where race comes from, why it still matters, how it impacts us, and how it intersects with other sorts of inequality in society.

This course has two primary substantive aims: first, to develop an understanding of how the idea of race has emerged and developed in the United States, and second, to understand how race intersects with other systems of inequality (including class, gender, sexuality, and disability). It has the additional aim of giving students the tools to critically interrogate race in term of both their academic and non-academic lives (for instance, the appearance of race in the media). Students will also get practice in a number of important forms of academic and professional writing as pertains to race, as well as in leading class discussions.