What is Racial Difference? (Web Resource)
Title: What is Racial Difference?
Author: Cord Whitaker and Wellesley College English 291
Abstract: What Is Racial Difference? is a blog for asking what race consists of: is it color? culture? geography? This is a site for asking what race does: does it produce division and strife? define and maintain communities? create and uphold structures of inequality? provide a platform for passing down rituals and values? This is a site for examining how race functions in daily life: does race affect a person’s perception of herself? her educational decisions? his professional performance, whether positively or negatively? This is a site for reflecting on where race operates: is race with us at the grocery store? at the academic conference? Contributors include students in Professor Cord Whitaker’s What Is Racial Difference? [English 291] at Wellesley College and professional scholars who think about race from a variety of disciplinary perspectives: English, French, Spanish, History, Biology, Genetics, Psychology, Anthropology, Political Science, etc. To answer ‘What is race?’ is to deal with a vast and varied array of evidence and a variety of analytical approaches that varies even more. This blog’s objective is to bring evidence and approaches—especially those that may be less well known—to light and into conversation.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://whatisracialdifference.com

English 291: What Is Racial Difference? (Course or Curricular Material)
Title: English 291: What Is Racial Difference?
Author: Cord J. Whitaker
Abstract: Is Race a modern problem? Is it medieval? Is it ancient? Is Race visual? Is it textual? Is it scientific? Is it religious? Is Race real? Is it imaginary? Is Race nothing? Is Race everything? These and similar questions inform readings, discussion, and writing in English 291. Together, we explore the nature of race from classical antiquity through modern day in philosophy, science, art, and literature. Together, we explore the variety of disciplinary approaches to the study of race. We also consider the historical, social, and economic pressures that have consolidated the idea of race. Together, we ask: what is racial difference? The course is divided into four units, reflecting three major elements of racial discourse: physical difference, geographical difference, and religious difference, along with a unit dedicated to our main objective: to develop a working definition of race.
Year: 2015
Primary URL: http://whatisracialdifference.com
Audience: Undergraduate

Permalink: https://apps.neh.gov/publicquery/products.aspx?gn=AQ-50712-12