Understanding Race and Colonialism

Why do ideas about race feature in social relations today? What structures of knowledge do ideas about racial difference rely upon? How do historical projects of race-making come to be refashioned in contemporary social life? This course engages with such questions by examining the provenance of race and its defining role in the formation of colonial modernity. It provides an overview of key theoretical approaches and methodological debates in the study of race, racism and colonial formations across various disciplines and intersecting sites of modern power. This course is a University-wide introductory course and open to students across the University. This course is intended to serve as an introduction to race and colonial studies. It traces the relationship between race and colonialism across a number of central concepts and theoretical approaches. These include: - Power/Knowledge: Locating Race and Epistemology - Intersectionality and Its Counter-Parts - Whiteness - Islamophobia and Antisemitism - Transatlantic Slavery and Its Afterlife - Decolonization - Feminist Debates - The Politics of Solidarity - Art, Aesthetics and the Politics of Refusal   Credit level: 8 Year taken: Year 1 Undergraduate SCQF credits: 20