History 456
Race in the Americas
Prof. Alejandra Bronfman
1121 Buchanan Tower
Office hours: Tuesday 11-12; Friday 12-3 or by appointment
Beginning with slavery and colonialism but focused principally on the 20th and 21st centuries, this course will study the legacies and implications of the massive migration, forced and otherwise, from the African continent to the Caribbean, Latin America, and North America. Topics will range from the creation of racial categories in the contexts of slavery and colonialism to the making of transnational and transracial families to the recent cultural politics of “blackness” with emphasis on the ways that different kinds of archives produce multiple and often conflicting narratives. Students will produce as well as consume history. In addition to scholarly monographs and articles, course material will include film, sound, and fiction.
Course website:
Please sign on to the website and make sure that you check it regularly. I will use it to post announcements and readings and make any necessary changes to the readings or schedule. You will use it to post comments about the readings. You should also think of it as your space and take advantage of the possibilities of sharing images, sounds, videos, or anything that might enhance our experience of the course.
Required Books:
Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (Grove Press, 2008 [1952])
Mia Bay, Martha Jones et al., Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2015)
Claudio Saunt, Black, White and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family (New York, Oxford University Press, 2005)
In addition to these books, we will engage a number of different kinds of texts, including primary sources, scholarly articles, and non-academic writing. The schedule below has details about how to locate them. The point of this is two-fold. First, you will have the opportunity to explore and understand a number of different perspectives on the past. Second, you will have a chance to think about how and why these different kinds of texts are produced. History is nothing but a series of arguments, and each of these texts articulates a particular argument using specific tools and strategies. We will talk a lot about the tools and strategies with which history is written and memory is constructed. A significant amount of class time will be devoted to helping you read and understand these texts. This will be crucial to your success in this course, but it will also be useful in any history course you take at UBC or elsewhere.
Additional readings will be posted on the website or available online.
Who can take this course? Are there any prerequisites?
Anyone who is willing to work hard and to wrestle with the problems and issues in History 456 is welcome to enroll. It is not necessary to have a background in history of race in the Americas.
What are the goals and objectives of History 456?
Students who complete this course successfully will possess an understanding of the broad outlines the multiple histories of people of African descent in the Americas. History 456 is built on an interpretive scheme, and one of your tasks will be to confront and criticize this scheme so that you can formulate one of your own.
There are other, more specific goals. By the end of the year, students should be able to:
-Understand and explain concepts including the Black Atlantic, essentialism, nationalism, epistemology, and subjectivity in relation to course material.
-Account for the comparative and related histories of race throughout the Americas.
-Understand the ways that different kinds of sources have been put to use in the writing of history and creation of historical memory.
-Distinguish among different kinds of texts (primary sources, novels, essays, scholarly articles, speeches, images, films) and analyze each one for context, voice and argument.
-Understand the relevance of colonialism, slavery, freedom, science, gender and space to the production of racial ideologies.
-Compare and contrast the writings of specific authors including (but not limited to) Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Claudio Saunt, WEB. DuBois, Paul Gilroy, Kwame Anthony Appiah and Frantz Fanon.
-Contribute to classroom and virtual debates and conversations about the course material in an informed and thoughtful manner.
-Take initiative to follow individual interests and formulate presentations and projects that engage the course material.
How can I succeed in this course? What will be expected of me? What are the general guidelines for marks?
In this arena, your success will depend upon careful reading and note-taking, a willingness to take intellectual risks in your writing and in our discussions, and a desire to explore anthropologist Michel-Rolph Trouillot has called “the interplay between historicity 1 and historicity 2, between what happened and what is said to have happened.”
Participation in the lectures and discussions is an essential part of your success. What does participation mean? It means active engagement with your colleagues; it means asking questions and listening carefully to others; it means trying to answer questions and having the courage to share your ideas; it means coming to class prepared – that is, coming to class with having completed the reading. Each of us shares the responsibility for how well History 456 will work. Accordingly, we need to build an environment where everyone feels welcome, and where all of our ideas are respected and where they can be explored and criticized.
This means above all that it is our shared responsibility to ensure that everyone in the class is comfortable in it, and that no one feel ill-at-ease for reasons of age or gender, economic standing, political preference, race, ethnic or religious background, national origin, or sexual orientation. It therefore follows that jokes at anyone’s expense other than that of the instructor are not permitted.
No one likes to deal with marks, but they are a fact of our university lives. In History 456, you will be rewarded for consistently doing your work over the course of the entire semester; there will be chances to resubmit work with which you may be dissatisfied.
Remember that marks are merely an evaluation of your work, and not a comment on your intelligence. They are not an evaluation of you as a person. And they are not a comment on how hard you have worked. It is possible in this class to work very hard – the hardest you have ever worked in a class at UBC – and still receive a “B” or a “C.” Curiously, perhaps, the more you concentrate on marks and on the results, the less well you may do. In learning, it is the process that matters and, I believe, it is the process that in the end determines the results. So, work hard, take notes when you read – I can help with strategies about this – and ask questions. If you can do this, the results should take care of themselves.
If you are experiencing difficulties with the readings, please come see me and we can discuss the troublesome material or, if you like, some general strategies for doing the work in History. Don’t wait until March or April to see me; drop by early in the term.
What are the general guidelines for attendance, deadlines and integrity?
What we do in class will help you make sense out of our readings, which are the core of this course. Therefore, attendance at all lectures and discussion sessions is mandatory. If you have a valid reason for missing a class, please send me an e-mail. If you become seriously ill or have a crisis that interferes with your work, please let me know so that we can discuss strategies for dealing with the situation and possible exceptions to our regular deadlines. If you do not inform me of the extraordinary circumstances that you may be facing, all work must be completed on time. You will find me sympathetic and flexible if you are confronting a difficult situation; however, if you do not inform me, in advance, you will be expected to complete your work on time. Late papers will be penalized 5% per day unless you tell me in advance.
As the university has explained, “Regular attendance is expected of students in all their classes (including lectures, laboratories, tutorials, seminars, etc.). Students who neglect their academic work and assignments may be excluded from the final examinations.” This means that you will be entitled to write the final exam/paper only if you come to class. The official policy of the university holds that it: “accommodates students with disabilities who have registered with the Disability Resource Centre. The University accommodates students whose religious obligations conflict with attendance, submitting assignments, or completing scheduled tests and examinations…. Please let your instructor know in advance, preferably in the first week of class, if you will require any accommodation on these grounds.
“Students who plan to be absent for varsity athletics, family obligations, or other similar commitments, cannot assume they will be accommodated….”
If you face a learning challenge, such as a diagnosed “learning disability,” please know that I will work with you so that you can achieve to the extent that you aspire. Drop by to discuss the course requirements and whatever accommodations may be helpful to you.
By university standards, there is a moderate amount of reading in this course. If you decide to enroll, be certain that you are prepared to do the reading and to submit your work on time. Failure to meet this expectation is likely to produce unsatisfactory results in our classes as well as on your transcripts.
Specific guidelines for marks and requirements
Consistent attendance, conscientious reading, and attentive and civil participation are essential parts of your work in this course. In the realm of academic integrity, you are expected to refrain from cheating, lying, or engaging in acts of plagiarism. All written work in History 456 should be prepared and completed by each individual student. If you borrow someone’s words or ideas, they should be cited in the proper manner. Here is a useful link to help you understand what plagiarism is and avoid it.
http://help.library.ubc.ca/researching/academic-integrity/
Above all, please remember that all authors own their ideas, words, and research; you therefore must give appropriate credit, typically in the form of quotations and footnotes, when using the work of another scholar. Plagiarism, whether or not it is “intentional,” is a serious violation of UBC’s standards; violations of the standards will be prosecuted. If your work is late, if you feel under pressure, do anything but cheat, please. Do not jeopardize your career and your good name for the sake of a mark in History 456. It’s just not worth it.
Take great care when using resources on the Web, as many can prove helpful; a significant number, however, can be misleading – including, of course, Wikipedia. Be certain that unattributed sentences gleaned from the Web do not find their way into your submissions for History 456. Failure to be vigilant about this matter inevitably will raise questions about academic integrity.
All written work except blog postings must be:
- Double-spaced and formatted in a simple, easy-to-read font, such as Times New Roman. The size of the font must be 12-point.
- Set so it has margins of one inch on both sides, and at the top and bottom.
- Numbered by pages and attached in the upper left corner.
- Backed-up, always, at regular intervals. (I recommend every three minutes.) Use a USB mini-drive, a network storage service, and/or a hard copy. Computer or printer crashes or problems are not acceptable reasons for late submissions.
The Faculty of Arts requires that written work conform to accepted standards of English expression; if writing does not meet such standards, it cannot be evaluated. Marks will be based on the quality of your written work and of your participation in the lectures and discussions. The key is regular attendance and doing the reading, on time, and coming to class, prepared.
Devices: In class, electronic devices are to be used only for work on our course. Please refrain from using your phones in class. I will expect students to abide by this policy. Anyone in consistent violation will be asked to drop the course.
Assignments
Participation and discussion 25%
Informed participation in discussions is essential to this course. See above for further guidelines.
Group project 10%
Find examples of the uses of the Haitian revolution in popular culture, art or literature. Create a short presentation with some comments about it. We will talk more about this in class. Due January 31, in class.
Paper on podcasts: 15%
Write a two-page review of the podcasts listed for week #8 (March 2). Respond to the content, but also the form and the medium; how does listening shape your understanding of the material? What difference does it make to hear people’s voices? This can be less scholarly and more journal-like if you are in the mood to try something different with your writing.
Due March 7, in class.
Blog postings (at least 6) 25%. These will be responses to the readings or course material. They can take whatever direction you choose, but they must engage specific arguments or approaches in the readings. At least two paragraphs. Due by 9 pm on Mondays, in anticipation of our Tuesday discussions. For feedback, please print them out and hand them in.
At least one of your blog postings should be about the MOA exhibit or the Black Strathcona tour.
Please read your fellow students’ blog postings, and respond to them either on the website or in our discussions.
Late blog postings will not be accepted for a grade, though you may post whenever you like.
Final paper/project 25%
You may choose one of these options:
- Historiographic essay (choose 1 week and read three of the recommended readings)—2000 words.
2. Multimedia project with some scholarly content and at least 800 words.
3. Choose one of the primary sources we have read or watched and write a document analysis. What this will include will depend on the source itself. I will give you guidelines if you choose this option. 2000 words.
Included in the grade are the assignments leading up to your submission:
- Proposal with annotated bibliography Due March 14
- Comments on another classmate’s paper/project, Due April 4
- Final project/paper. Due April 6
Schedule
Week 1
January 3: Introductions
January 5: What is race and why do we care about it?
Reading: Paul Gilroy, Black Atlantic: Modernity and Double Consciousness, excerpt
Colonialism and the making of the modern world
Week 2
January 10: Discussion of readings
- Armand Marie Leroi, “A Family Tree in Every Gene” New York Times, 14 March, 2005
- Response: R.C. Lewontin, “Confusions about Human Races” SSRC Web Forum, Is Race Real? 7 June, 2006 http://raceandgenomics.ssrc.org/Lewontin/
- W.E.B. Dubois, Souls of Black Folk (Chicago: McClurg & Co., 1903): Chapter 1, “Of Our Spiritual Strivings” online at http://www.bartleby.com/114/1.html
- Kwame Anthony Appiah, In My Father’s House: Africa in the Philosophy of Culture (New York: Oxford University Press, 1993), Chapter 2: “Illusions of Race”
January 12: Slavery, colonialism, porous bodies and fluid spaces
Week 3
January 17: Discussion of readings
- Rebecca Earle, “’If You Eat Their Food…’ Diets and Bodies in Early Colonial Spanish America” American Historical Review, June, 2010, 688-713.
- 2. Kevin Dawson, “The Cultural Geography of Enslaved Ship Pilots” (Chapter 8) from Jorge Cañizares-Esguerra, Matt Childs, James Sidbury, eds. The Black Urban Atlantic in the Age of the Slave Trade (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013) online via UBC library website.
- Jace Weaver “The Red Atlantic: Transoceanic Cultural Exchanges” American Indian Quarterly, Vol. 35, No. 3
January 19: Revolutions and Reverberations in the Atlantic World
Week 4
January 24: Discussion of readings
Michel-Rolph Trouillot, Silencing the Past: Power and the Production of History (Boston: Beacon Press, 1995) Chapter 3, “An Unthinkable History: The Haitian Revolution as a Non-Event” or another chapter from this book if you’ve already read Chapter 3. Posted on course website.
Ada Ferrer, “Haiti, Free Soil and Anti-Slavery in the Revolutionary Atlantic” American Historical Review, February 2012: 40-66.
Michael West and William Martin, “Haiti, I’m Sorry: The Haitian Revolution and the Forging of the Black International” in West, Martin and Wilkins, eds. From Toussaint to Tupac: The Black International since the Age of Revolution (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2009)
January 26: Group project: find examples of the uses of the Haitian revolution in popular culture, art or literature. Create a short presentation with some comments about it. Here are some leads:
http://h-france.net/fffh/maybe-missed/happy-as-a-slave-the-toussaint-louverture-miniseries/
https://www.amazon.com/Hut-Projects-Mansion-Wyclef-Jean/dp/B002Q4TKKY
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5827YL8951M
The Production of Knowledge: Race, Science, History
Week 5
January 31: presentations of findings
February 2: Religion, Science, the Future, and Fear
Week 6
February 7: Discussion of readings
Raimundo Nina Rodrigues, The Fetishist Animism of the Bahian Blacks (O Animismo Fetischtados Negros Bahianos) 1896-1900 (Excerpt) posted on course website.
José Vasconcelos, The Cosmic Race (Mexico, 1948) (Excerpt) posted on course website.
Erika Lee, “The Yellow Peril and Asian Exclusion in the Americas” Pacific Historical Review, Vol. 76, No. 4.
February 9: Another Intellectual History
Week 7
February 14: Discussion of readings:
Essays from Bay, Jones et al., Toward an Intellectual History of Black Women (Chapel Hill: UNC Press, 2015)
Mia Bay, “The Battle for Womanhood Is the Battle for Race: Black Women and Nineteenth-Century Racial Thought”
Martha Jones, “Histories, Fictions, and Black Womanhood Bodies: Race and Gender in Twenty-First-Century Politics”
And
Corinne T. Field, “Frances E. W. Harper and the Politics of Intellectual Maturity”
OR
Alexandra Cornelius, “A Taste of the Lash of Criticism: Racial Progress, Self-Defense, and Christian Intellectual Thought in the Work of Amelia E. Johnson”
February 16; Fanon film, Concerning Violence
Break February 20-24 : Read Frantz Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks (excerpt)
and Gloria Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera (excerpt)
Essentialism and Anti-Essentialism
Week 8
February 28: Discussion of reading
Fanon, Black Skin, White Masks
Anzaldua, Borderlands/La Frontera
March 2 (no class): fluidity or authenticity? Podcasts: “Ally’s Choice”, “Straight outta Chevy Chase”, “There Were No Black Artists with No. 1 Hits in 2013” and TBA
Week 9
March 7: Discussion:
Claudio Saunt, Black, White and Indian: Race and the Unmaking of an American Family (New York, Oxford University Press, 2005), Ch 1-5/ and podcasts
Podcast paper due
March 9: Discussion: Saunt, Black, White and Indian, Ch. 6-10
Week 10
March 14: Another view of history: a visit to the MOA: Amazonia: The Rights of Nature
Proposals for final project/paper due
March 16: Afrofuturism
Race, place, and the future
Week 11
March 21: Discussion: Afro futurist texts and media TBA
March 23: Race in unexpected places: Argentina and Canada, so white?
Week 12
March 28: Discussion of readings:
Lea Geler, “African descent and whiteness in Buenos Aires
Impossible mestizajes in the white capital city” in Eduardo Elena and Paulina Alberto, eds. Rethinking Race in Modern Argentina (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2016)
Paul Carr, “The “Equity Waltz” in Canada:
Whiteness and the informal realities of racism in education” Journal of Contemporary Issues in Education, 2008
Black Strathcona website: http://blackstrathcona.com/
March 30: Black Strathcona field trip
Week 13
April 4: Peer review/feedback. Presentation of projects to small groups. Write up some comments, email them to me and to the presenter.
April 6: exhibit, presentations and wrap up
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