IDS
4933 002: Contemporary Multicultural Studies (T & R 11:30-2:40, AD 240)
Wairimu Njambi
HC 148, telephone 6-8016, email wnjambi@fau.edu
Daniel White
HC 146, telephone 6-8651, email dwhite@fau.edu, Office Hours Summer A: T &
R 2:45-3:45 or by appt.
IDS 4933: Contemporary Multicultural Studies in Summer A
will focus on a special theme "Whiteness" studied from the
perspectives of critical theory, cultural studies, and women's studies. The
principal required text, Critical White Studies, contains a series of
critical articles exploring our theme from diverse theoretical, cultural,
class, and gendered viewpoints. In addition to reading key articles from this
source, we will be viewing a series of films/videos and reading some extra
articles by various theorists of culture and society, e.g., White
Mythology by Jacques Derrida (see "files" in Blackboard). The
second required text, Dreams
in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir by Ngugi wa Thiong’o, provides a narrative of education
and enculturation from the viewpoint of an individual raised in a traditional
Kenyan society existing outside the boundaries of yet in growing contact with
“white” Europeans. The contact between “whiteness and its “other” thus becomes
an organizing theme of our seminar. More specifically our enquiry will be into
the generative structures of “whiteness” and its “others” in contemporary
social, cultural, and gender formations and the conceptual frameworks in terms
of which they are understood—including social classes, ethnic groups, and
gendered individuals in the United States, Canada, Latin America, Europe, the
Middle East, South Asia, and Africa. “Whiteness” in this study is a “metaphor”
that functions as an organizing principle of a worldview and a set of
communicative practices that serve to confirm and implement it. Thus in
Derrida’s terms, we will be studying, “A white mythology which assembles and
re-flects Western culture: the white man takes his
own mythology (that is, Indo-European mythology), his logos—that is, the mythos of his idiom, for the universal
form of that which it is still his inescapable desire to call Reason” (“White
Mythology,” p. 11). In terms of cultural and postcolonial studies, this
mythology is a key element in colonialism and its critical deconstruction is a
necessary praxis in the creation of a democratic and pluralistic national and
international order.
This class counts as an
ICIS Seminar and an International Studies course in the Honors College Core
Curriculum. Because the class is accelerated, each session is equal to
approximately one week of class in a normal term; thus weekly assignments must
be more demanding than in the normal session and attendance is valued more
highly. You are expected to be here for every class and actively to participate
in class discussion; to write a series of critical essays; and to give one
informal presentation on readings in Blackboard or selected readings from Critical White Studies, as well as one
formal group presentation on our course theme during the last week of the term.
Required Texts:
Critical White Studies (abbreviated CWS
Dreams in a Time of War: A Childhood Memoir
(abbreviated DTW)
Readings in Blackboard (abbreviated BB: see articles
under “files” for IDS 4933)
Assignments and Grades:
1) A Series of 6 Reading Responses: each 400-600 words in length; total = 60%;
2) an individual reading presentation to the class on essays in Blackboard
(10%) of final grade and class participation (10%) = 20%;
3) a final group presentation providing critical perspectives on some instance
of “whiteness” in cultural, social, or gendered practices = 20%.
Weekly Assignments
Week 4 June 7-9
T: Reading Presentations CWS: 40. The Curse of Ham – D. Marvin Jones; 41. Los Olvidados: On the Making of Invisible People – Juan F. Perea; 42. White Innocence, Black
Abstraction – Thomas Ross; 43. Race and the Dominant Gaze: Narratives of
Law and Inequality in Popular Film – Margaret M. Russell; 44. Residential
Segregation and White Privilege – Martha R. Mahoney; BB: Sarah Ahmed, “Phenomenology of Whiteness.” DTW pp. 171-204.
Video: Former
Mexican Foreign Minister Jorge Castańeda on the Drug
War, Legalization, Immigration and Free Trade
R: Reading Presentations 45. Mules, Madonnas,
Babies, Bathwater: Racial Imagery and Stereotypes – Linda L. Ammons; 46. The Other Pleasures: The Narrative Function of
Race in the Cinema – Anna Everett; 47. White Privilege and Male Privilege: A
Personal Account of Coming to See Correspondences through Work in Women’s
Studies – Peggy McIntosh; 48. From Practice to Theory, or What Is a White Woman
Anyway? – Catharine A. MacKinnon; Barbie
Revisited; DTW pp. 205-221. Reading
Response 4 in class.
Video: Sen. Arlen Specter
Cross-Examines Anita Hill; Anita
Hill Controversy.
Week 5 June 14-16
T: Reading Presentations 49. Racial Construction and
Women as Differentiated Actors – Martha R. Mahoney; 55. The Social Construction of Whiteness – Martha R. Mahoney; 100.
Treason to Whiteness Is Loyalty to Humanity – An lnterview
with Noel lgnatiev of Race Traitor Magazine; BB:
Ricky Lee Allen, “Whiteness and Critical Pedagogy.” DTW pp. 222-257.
Video: Prison Economics
Help Drive Ariz. Immigration Law ; Novelist
Edwidge Danticat:
"Haitians Are Very Resilient, But It Doesn't Mean They Can Suffer More
Than Other People"
R: Reading
Presentations CWS 91. The
Changing Faces of White Supremacy – Loretta J . Ross and Mary Ann Mauney; 77. Our
Next Race Question: The Uneasiness between Blacks and Latinos – Jorge Klor de Alva, Earl Shorris, and
Cornel West 101. How to Be a Race Traitor: Six Ways to Fight Being White – Noel
lgnatiev; 108. Dysconscious
Racism: The Cultural Politics of Critiquing Ideology and Identity – Joyce E.
King. Reading Response
5 in class.
Video: Once-Banned
Muslim Scholar Tariq Ramadan on His First Visit to US in Six Years, President
Obama and Why Muslims Should Make Their Voices Heard
Week 6 June 21-23
T: Group Presentations & Discussion; Reading Response 6 (written out of class)
due.
R:
Group Presentations &
Discussion.