Racecraft
A First-Year Tutorial offered fall 2021, taught by Katya Gibel Mevorach, professor of anthropology and American studies
Required book: Barbara J. Fields and Karen E. Fields. Racecraft: The Soul of Inequality in American Life (Verso 2012)
Racism is first and foremost a social practice [因 an action and a rationale for action. Though the concept of race has no genetic or scientific basis, the hierarchical structures weve built using this false idea are alive and well, and were all complicit in their persistence. This tutorial considers racism and the alchemy that converts Otherness into profound Difference. We will explore how racial meanings are constructed through a combination of policies and practices with an emphasis on the United States and examples from other countries. Using different types of texts academic articles, films, comedian acts, music, newspapers and advertisements we will explore representations of whiteness, blackness, Jewishness, Islam and other race-d identities in the public arena as well. Throughout the semester we will interrogate the language, ideas, and assumptions that give meaning to the different ways we perceive the world around us and through which we understand our individual experiences.
Why Im Teaching This Topic
I am interested in how we come to know what we know, how we come to see with intent, the associations we make, and the language we use. How do we recognize similarity and difference? How do we see ourselves and others? Our ways of looking, acting, speaking, and thinking are not self-made they are learned, acquired, internalized, and come to be taken for granted as if they were natural.
Katya Gibel Mevorach