For a long time historians and other scholars have studied the construction of "knowledge":  what is given the status of "knowledge," by what procedures, according to what notions of expertise and authority, reflective of whose self-interests, and as circulated to whom?  This new essay collection with the awkward title of Agnotology marks an important shift from the study of "knowledge" to the study of ignorance.  We might ask the same questions of ignorance?  By what procedures is it constructed?  Reflective of whose interests?  Circulated to whom?  Et cetera.

This course is focused on American articulations of images of other parts of the world, at a crucial juncture of American history:  its transition from a set of colonies with membership in the British empire in the eighteenth century, to an independent nation with its own imperial ambitions up to the mid-nineteenth century (the eve of the American Civil War).  How did imperial membership affect colonial Americans' perception of the rest of the world, and their connection to it?  Then, how did independent nationhood and imperial ambition affect Americans' perception of the rest of the world, and their connection to it?  Let us think about these questions through these questions equipped with important conceptual considerations, namely the cultural construction of ignorance and "knowledge."

1a.  What are some of the ways by which ignorance is constructed in a culture and society, according to Proctor?

1b.  What are the consequences of such ignorance, according to Proctor?  Who benefits from igrnorance?  Who sustains ignorance without necessarily benefiting from it?  Why?

2.  How is ignorance (as opposed to, say, hatred) related to racism, according to Mills?  What are the consequences of such ignorance?