L680 MILLER 25344 (#6)
Special Topics in Literary Study and Theory

7:15p – 8:30p TR

TOPIC: LAW AND NARRATIVE: CRITICAL RACE THEORY
http://mypage.iu.edu/~almiller/

This is the first course of its kind taught here at Indiana
University. M.A., M.F.A., and PhD students in English are all
encouraged to join in, as well as interested graduate students from
departments other than English, in order to make for lively
discussions across methodologies (creative, historical, theoretical,
clinical, etc.).

Critical race theory is rooted in the critical legal studies
movement, and emerged as a reaction to positivist law, challenging
the very underpinnings and mechanisms of law.  As an academic
discipline it offers a lens through which to re-examine and question
the relationship between not only race and society, but race and the
justice system.  In addition, critical race theory distinguishes
itself from many academic disciplines by maintaining an activist
component, advocating for continuing social change.  Law is often
viewed as a scheme for doling out justice and imposing order in
social relations that are frequently ungovernable, chaotic, and
unpredictable. As we know, law can also be a powerful mechanism for
both  reinforcing structures of power as well as disrupting them.
Any meaningful study of race in American culture is ultimately the
study of individuals profoundly affected by the impact of racial
designations and categories as established, orchestrated,
manipulated, and re-defined by the law.

This is a special topics course designed as an introduction to some
of the conceptual and historical roots of contemporary critical
practice in critical legal studies, with an emphasis on the exciting
field of critical race studies.  We will examine law (and writings
about law) as a process of creating meaning.

We will take an eclectic approach, drawing on a wide range of
readings that focus on the ways in which historical, cultural, and
societal narratives are constructed and affect social policies such
as  segregation, Jim Crow, “race-blindness,” integration,
assimilation, difference, affirmative action, hate speech, etc.
More general topics likely to surface organically through the
readings as a natural complement to that of law and race,  might
well include the relationship between law and privacy, law and
sexuality, law and homosexuality, and law and family relations.

Likely suspects of critical writings might include but are not
limited to two anthologies, either Critical Race Theory: The Key
Writings That Formed the Movement, edited by Kimberle Crenshaw, Neil
Gotanda, Gary Peller, and Kendall Thomas; and Critical Race Theory:
The Cutting Edge, edited by Richard Delgado and Jean Stefancic.  We
may read also read additional material from Law’s Stories edited by
Peter Brooks or When Law Goes Pop by Richard Sherwin.  Other likely
suspects:  Kenji Yoshino, Derrick Bell, Cornel West, Kimberle
Crenshaw, Peter Brooks, James Boyd White, Patricia Williams, Mari
Matsuda, Richard Delgado, Mary Frances Berry, Martha Minow,
Catherine McKinnon, Robert Cover, Beth Barrett, Frances Olsen,
Richard Sherwin, Cass Sunstein, Martha Nussbaumn, Henry Louis Gates,
Jr., Jeffrey Rosen, etc.


We will also dig into a little case law along the lines of Loving v.
Virginia, Washington v. Davis, some of Brown v. Board, Plessy v.
Ferguson, as well as possibly some complete and/or excerpted primary
texts like Black Notebooks by Toi Derricotte, Caucasia by Danzy
Senna, Brutal Imagination by Cornelius Eady, To Kill A Mockingbird
by Harper Lee, etc.

Each class member will choose and pursue a related topic of
interest, culminating in a critical  presentation (format is very
open), and a  paper on that topic (which can take the form of a well-
developed inquiry, a formal  academic paper, a conference paper, a
dissertation chapter, a critical essay, or a work of auto-
biographical criticism that blends creative/critical components,
etc.).