MAY BE TAKEN FOR GRADUATE CREDIT

Topic:   Race, Identities and Inequalities

Racial and ethnic identities continue to be important determinants
of the life chances of individuals.  Many social pundits and
scholars report that racial polarization in the U.S. is increasing,
that multiculturalism is a battleground rather than a meeting
ground, that assimilation is dead and racial conflict endemic.  This
course will examine the forces that shape the creation and
maintenance of racial identities and racial inequalities in the
United States and the linkages between the two.  We will pay special
attention to how racial identities are created and experienced by
individuals in the U.S.  In the process, we will try to answer the
question of why whites and blacks and other ethnic groups have
different opinions about social inequalities and relationships
between racial groups.

This course has a narrower scope than does S335.  We will consider a
smaller set of topics but explore them in greater depth.  We will
read and discuss sections of most of the texts in the following list
as well as a number of articles on specific topics.

Course requirements will be satisfied by participation in class
discussions, completion of a short paper, a mid-term exam, and a
longer course paper.  The short paper will be on topics selected by
the instructor designed to examine the student’s command of the
course material.  The final course paper will be a longer paper on a
topic of interest to the student selected after consultation
concerning the subject and how it will be linked to the material
covered in the course.

I will assign all or most of the following texts and I am in the
process of reviewing other texts and readings that will also be
assigned.  Please contact me if you have any questions about the
course.

Douglas Massey and Nancy Denton.  1993.  American Apartheid:
Segregation and the Making of the Underclass.

Stephen Cornell and Douglas Hartmann.  1998.  Ethnicity and Race:
Making Identities in a Changing World.