NEH Enduring Questions Course on Race and Identity

FAIN: AQ-248221-16

Carroll College (Helena, MT 59625-0001)
Gerardo Rodriguez (Project Director: September 2015 to April 2017)
Soumitree Gupta (Project Director: April 2017 to May 2019)
Soumitree Gupta (Co Project Director: March 2016 to April 2017)
Gerardo Rodriguez (Co Project Director: April 2017 to May 2019)

The development and teaching of a new undergraduate course on literary and theological narratives of race.

What is Race? This question has been asked in various ethnocentric articulations throughout history and is a relevant and pressing topic in contemporary American culture. Our Enduring Questions course will examine representations of race in U.S. and global contexts from literary and theological perspectives, with the goal of engaging students to consider how the worldviews of oppressor and oppressed impact relationships between racial and ethnic communities in ancient, colonial, and post-colonial contexts. We will undertake an interdisciplinary and in-depth exploration of the historical frameworks that ground contemporary race issues and the philosophical complexities that surround the subject of race at specific socio-historical junctures. As a result of taking our course our students will be able to better understand the conflicting factors and nuances hiding behind contemporary racial issues in the U.S. and around the world.

Associated Products

Critical Race Counterstories and Freire's Critical Pedagogy: Navigating Race in an Interdisciplinary Literature and Religious Studies Course (Book Section)
Title: Critical Race Counterstories and Freire's Critical Pedagogy: Navigating Race in an Interdisciplinary Literature and Religious Studies Course
Author: Soumitree Gupta
Author: Gerardo Rodríguez-Galarza
Editor: James D. Kirylo
Abstract: Our essay addresses the relevance of conscientization in Freire’s critical pedagogy to the teaching of race in higher education in the current times. Given that Freire’s conscientization was addressed to oppressed groups, we ask: What would conscientization mean for historically oppressive communities in twenty-first century U.S.? How can educators enable this work of conscientization with self-identified white college students in courses that focus on U.S. race relations? We address these questions through our interdisciplinary course, “Race and Identity: Literary and Theological Narratives.” We co-developed and taught this course within our disciplinary home departments (English and Theology) in our predominantly white institutions (PWI) in the midwest and the northwest. In our pedagogy, we integrate counterstorytelling with engaged learning strategies. We argue that critical race counterstories need to be paired with a strategic problem-posing learning model to enable the work of conscientization. Keywords: conscientization/conscientizaҫāo, critical race counterstories, problem posing pedagogy, literary studies, religious studies, higher education
Year: 2020
Primary URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/reinventing-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-9781350117174/
Primary URL Description: Link to the paperback edition -- obtained from the publisher's (Bloomsbury Academic) website
Secondary URL: https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/reinventing-pedagogy-of-the-oppressed-9781350117204/
Secondary URL Description: Link to the ebook -- obtained from the publisher's (Bloomsbury Academic) website
Publisher: Bloomsbury Academic
Book Title: Reinventing Pedagogy of the Oppressed: Contemporary Critical Perspectives
ISBN: 9781350117174

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