Politics of Racial Knowledge (304-0-20)
Instructors
Katrina Quisumbing King
kqk@northwestern.edu
Professor Quisumbing King received her PhD in sociology from the University of Wisconsin – Madison in 2018. Before joining Northwestern, she spent two years as a postdoctoral fellow at USC. Her research and teaching interests lie in topics related to empire, race and ethnicity, citizenship and migration, intersectionality, law, and political and historical sociology.
Meeting Info
Kresge Centennial Hall 2-415: Tues, Thurs 2:00PM - 3:20PM
Overview of class
On a daily basis we consume—often without notice or concern—a substantial amount of racial knowledge. We routinely ingest, for example, infographics about demographic trends, media coverage on crime and undocumented immigration, and advertisements for ancestry tests. In complex and contextually specific ways, this diet shapes our personal and collective identities, social interactions and relationships, and political aspirations and anxieties. In this course, we endeavor to study the politics of racial knowledge—the ways in which categories, measurements, and other techniques of knowledge production have helped to constitute "race" as a seemingly objective, natural demarcation among human populations and institute forms of racial domination and inequality. Historically, racial knowledge has stipulated and legitimated what we might describe as a kind of racial ontology, a set of assumptions, claims, and prescriptions about race and racial superiority/inferiority—e.g. the notion that "whites" or "the West" represent the apex of human civilization.
Drawing on diverse texts, this course explores of the emergence, evolution, and effects of racial knowledge. This exploration will begin by discussing the historical relationship between the modern concept of race and European colonialism and slavery. Subsequently, we will track several major developments in the history of racial knowledge, from Enlightenment naturalists to censuses to contemporary genomics research.
Learning Objectives
At the end of this class, students should be able to describe how have diverse actors—e.g., scientists, state officials, and coders—have made and mobilized racial knowledge. They should be able to name institutional factors have shaped these processes and their consequences. Students should also develop an opinion on what role racial knowledge should play in addressing racial inequality and exclusion.
In addition, students should develop a sense of ownership over and shared community in their coursework and learning.
Teaching Method
Lecture and small group discussion
Evaluation Method
Participation, quizzes, memos, final paper
Class Materials (Required)
This course will have required books/other materials.
(note that the library has e-versions of all these books)
The Nature of Race: How Scientists Think and Teach about Human Difference. ISBN: 9780520270312
Figures of the Future: Latino Civil Rights and the Politics of Demographic Change ISBN: 9780691199467
Race After Technology: Abolitionist Tools for the New Jim Code ISBN: 9781509526406
Class Attributes
Social and Behavioral Science Foundational Discipl
Social & Behavioral Sciences Distro Area
Enrollment Requirements
Enrollment Requirements: Pre-registration is reserved for Sociology Majors and Minors.