Race, Gender, and Representation

Instructors:  Nicholas Bloom and Andi Remoquillo
Meeting time: Wednesday, 9:00-11:45 am
Canvas site

How have art, literature, and scholarship in the U.S. shaped understandings of race, gender, and power throughout the 19th and 20th centuries? How have marginalized communities reclaimed authorship over their identities through processes of representation, historical writing and art, and other counternarratives? Can representations of race and gender exist outside of dualisms of Good/Bad, Harmful/Productive? In this course, we will explore these questions–and other crucial questions in the study of race, gender, & representation–by engaging in close-readings of various primary historical, cultural, and secondary sources. The units will be organized chronologically, roughly beginning with the mid-19th century, moving through the long-20th century and ending with a consideration of race, gender, and representation in the present. Besides being organized roughly chronologically, the course will also be divided into three key themes: Performance/Performativity; Space and Place; and Citizenship, Political Belonging, & Leadership. The goal of the course is for students to come away with some general knowledge of the key historical and contemporary problems in the study of race, gender, and representation, and to begin to develop critical tools necessary to analyze various kinds of representational texts–literature, film, television, music, etc.--from an interdisciplinary historical perspective.