APA Committees

Afro-American Studies 126: Philosophical Perspectives on Race and Racism

Afro-American Studies 126: Philosophical Perspectives on Race and Racism Fall 2003
Mondays 2:00-4:00, Barker Center, Room 230 (Locke Seminar Room)

Professor Tommie Shelby
Office Hours: Mondays 4:00-6:00
Barker Center 242, 496-8546, tshelby@fas.harvard.edu

Course Description: Problems of race and racism are not traditional subjects for academic philosophy. Professional academic philosophers have mostly ignored the theoretical and practical issues posed by the notion of "race" as applied to varieties of humankind and by the history and persistence of racism, or when they have addressed these issues, they have treated them only in passing. But in recent years, philosophical writing on and interest in these issues has grown substantially. In this course, we will read and critically discuss some of that recent work. The aim will be to explore important matters of race using philosophical methods of analysis and critique.

Requirements: Class participation, a 5-7 page paper (due Oct. 24), and an 8-10 page paper (due Jan. 16).

Texts (all of which are, or will be, on reserve at Hilles and Lamont):

· Bernard Boxill, ed., Race and Racism (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). A required text, which is available at COOP.
· Susan E. Babbitt and Sue Campbell, eds., Racism and Philosophy (Ithaca: Cornell University Press, 1999). A required text, which is available at COOP.
· All required texts that are not in the above two volumes can be found in the coursepacket, which are available at Gnomon Copy. The articles and chapters in the coursepacket can also be found in their original sources, which are all on reserve. There are also several related and supplementary texts on reserve, which you might want to consult when writing your papers.

Schedule

September 15 (Week One): Introduction
September 22 (Week Two): Racism and the Practice of "Philosophy"
· Charles W. Mills, "The Racial Polity," in Racism and Philosophy
· Lewis R. Gordon, "Fanon, Philosophy, and Racism," in Racism and Philosophy
September 29 (Week Three): The Idea of "Race"
· W.E.B. Du Bois, "The Conservation of Races" and "What Is Africa to Me?" both in W.E.B. Du Bois: A Reader, ed. David L. Lewis (New York: Henry Holt and Company, 1995), pp. 20-27 and 655-659 respectively.
· Anthony Appiah, "The Uncompleted Argument: Du Bois and the Illusion of Race," Critical Inquiry 12 (Autumn 1985): 21-37.
October 6 (Week Four): The "Meaning" of Race
· Naomi Zack, "Race and Philosophic Meaning," in Race and Racism.
· Lucius Outlaw, "Toward a Critical Theory of 'Race,'" in Race and Racism.
October 13 (Week Five): No Class Meeting (Columbus Day)
October 20 (Week Six): Is Race a Social Construction?
· Elizabeth V. Spelman, "'Race' and the Labor of Identity," in Racism and Philosophy.
· Bernard Boxill, "Introduction," in Race and Racism.
October 27 (Week Seven): Racism and Ideology
· K. Anthony Appiah, "Racisms," in Anatomy of Racism, ed. David Theo Goldberg (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 1990), pp. 3-17.
· Anthony Skillen, "Racism: Flew's Three Concepts of Racism," Journal of Applied Philosophy 10, no. 1 (1993): 73-89.
November 3 (Week Eight): The Concept of "Racism"
· J.L.A. Garcia, "The Heart of Racism," in Race and Racism.
· Tommie Shelby, "Is Racism in the 'Heart'?" Journal of Social Philosophy 33 (Fall 2002): 411-420.
November 10 (Week Nine): Can Anyone Be Racist? Are There Degrees of Racism?
· Lawrence Blum, "Moral Asymmetries in Racism," in Racism and Philosophy.
· Marilyn Friedman, "Racism: Paradigms and Moral Appraisal," in Racism and Philosophy.
November 17 (Week Ten): Racial Discrimination
· Richard A. Wasserstrom, "Rights, Human Rights, and Racial Discrimination," in Race and Racism.
· Adrian M. S. Piper, "Two Kinds of Discrimination," in Race and Racism.
November 24 (Week Eleven): Race, Crime, and Quotas
· Michael Levin, "Responses to Race Differences in Crime," in Race and Racism.
· Ronald Dworkin, "Bakke's Case: Are Quotas Unfair?" in Race and Racism.
December 1 (Week Twelve): Race and Multiculturalism
· Iris M. Young, "Social Movements and the Politics of Difference," in Race and Racism.
· Robert Gooding-Williams, "Race, Multiculturalism and Democracy," in Race and Racism.
December 8 (Week Thirteen): Mixed Race Identity
· Linda Alcoff, "Mestizo Identity," in American Mixed Race, ed. Naomi Zack (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 1995), pp. 257-278.
· Ronald Sundstrom, "Being and Being Mixed Race," Social Theory and Practice 27 (April 2001): 285-307.
December 15 (Week Fourteen): Racism and Post-Colonial African Consciousness
· Kwame Anthony Appiah, "African Identities," in Race and Racism.
· Nkiru Nzegwu, "Colonial Racism: Sweeping Out Africa with Mother Europe's Broom," in Racism and Philosophy.