BTAN3006MA01: Race, Ethnicity, and Multiculturalism in North America
Time&place in spring 2012: THU 8-10, St. 111
Tutors: Judit Molnár (office: Rm. 118, <ieas.unideb.hu/molnar>, <judit.molnar@arts.unideb.hu>)
Gabriella T. Espák (office: Rm. 116/1, <ieas.unideb.hu/espak>, <gespak@unideb.hu>). Please,
check the Institute website for office hours.
Course description
This course builds on the various North American Studies courses in the BA program and offers a selective
review of matters of race, ethnicity, and multiculturalism in North America (US, Canada) and Australia. It is
team taught by Judit Molnár (lectures 6-9) and Gabriella Tóthné Espák (lectures 1-5 and 10-11). The final class
will be set aside for questions and discussion of the topics covered. An introductory class on terminology will
be followed by discussions of racial hierarchy, affirmative action, immigration, and the gay and lesbian
movements in the US. The next four lectures will deal with citizenship, racism, the media, and religion in
Canada. The course will be rounded out by three lectures on indigeneity, immigration and multiculturalism in
Australia.
Course requirements
Response papers: Course requirements include three response papers and an exam. Students will be asked to
write response papers of up to 3 pages on the various issues covered on the US, Canada, and Australia. This
makes up 30% of the final grade. The papers (printed) are due on week 7 (US), week 12 (Canada), and week 15
(Australia), following the last lecture on a given region.
Exam: The exam in the exam period makes up 70% of the final grade.
Readings: Although this is a lecture course, students are strongly advised to read the required texts before class.
Readings are available in the Institute Library (Rm. 101) in scanned, pdf format.
Grading
Response papers: 10% each (30%); exam: 70%.
Grading: 90-100% 5, 80-90% 4, 70-80% 3, 60-70% 2, 60 and below: 1.
Course Schedule
Week 1, Feb 9
Orientation, Terminology
Topics: aims of the course, requirements; civil and human rights; inter-, multi-, and transculturality; ethnicity, race,
color-consciousness, minority status, immigration, assimilation.
Week 2, Feb 16, Lecture 1 (US1)
Terminology (continued)
Topics: continued.
Readings: • Nathan Glazer, “We Are Multiculturalists Now”and • Ronald Takaki, “Multiculturalism: Battleground
or Meeting Ground?” in Multiculturalism in the United States. Eds. Peter Kivisto and Georganne Rundbald (Thousand
Oaks, CA: Pine Forge Press, 2000), 445-53, 481-90. • http://www2.uni-jena.de/welsch/Papers/
transcultSociety.html
Week 3, Feb 23, Lecture 2 (US2)
Racial Hierarchy in the US
Topics: changing concepts of race, a confusion of race and ethnicity, ethnic hierarchy at the turn of the 19th and 20th
centuries, how the hierarchy has changed since then
Readings: • Michael H. Hunt, Ideology and U.S. Foreign Policy (New Haven: Yale UP, 1987): Chapter 3: The
Hierarchy of Race, 46-91.
Week 4, Mar 1, Lecture 3 (US3)
Affirmative Action in the US
Topics: definition, aims, creation, implementation, efficiency, debates, the current state of affairs: who does it benefit,
should it be terminated?
Reading: • John David Skrentny, “The Origins and Politics of Affirmative Action” and • Stephen Steinberg,
“Affirmative Action and Liberal Capitulation,” in Multiculturalism in the United States, 269-94.
Week 5, Mar 8, Lecture 4 (US4)
Immigration and Assimilation in the US
Topics: immigration and multiculturality, debates over immigration, expectation of assimilation, strategies of
assimilation or its rejection, the necessity of assimilation, if it exists at all
Readings: • Alejandro Portes and Min Zhou, “Should Immigrants Assimilate?” and • Sarah J. Mahler, “Immigrant
Life on the Margins,” in Multiculturalism in the United States, 317-28, 343-54. • “The Immigration Debate” (text F1
in BA2 AmCultInst readings)
Week 6, Mar 15, National holiday
Week 7, Mar 22, Lecture 5 (US5)
Identity Formation: the Gay and Lesbian Movements in the US
Topics: different types of minority status, minority identity formation, traditional approaches to homosexuality: sin,
illness, shame, before and after Stonewall, the gay marriage debate
Video: •Before Stonewall (1994) • After Stonewall (1999)
Response paper 1 is due.
Week 8, Consultation week
Week 9, Apr 5, Lecture 6 (CA1)
Canadian Citizenship: A Sense of Belonging
Topics: dimensions of citizenship: charter groups, first peoples, new peoples. How should rights be conceived in
social, economic, legal, political, cultural and linguistic terms? Should they be exercised by communities and
individuals as well?
Readings: • Robert Fulford, “A Post-Modern Dominion: The Changing Nature of Citizenship” and • Neil
Bissoondath, “A Question of Belonging,” in Belonging: The Meaning and Future of Canadian Citizenship. Ed.
William Kaplan (Montreal: McGill-Queen’s UP, 1993), 102-19, 368-87.
Week 10, Apr 12, Lecture 7 (CA2)
Racism in Canada
Topics: perceptual ethnic hierarchies, negative attitude of prejudice, discriminatory behavior, ethnic stereotypes
Readings: • Monica Boyd, “Ethnicity and Immigrant Offspring,” in Perspectives on Ethnicity in Canada. Ed.
Madeline A. Kalbach and Warren E. Kalbach (Toronto: Harcourt Canada, 2000), 137-55. • Augie Fleras,
“Racializing Culture/Culturalizing Race: Multicultural Racism in a Multicultural Canada,” in Racism, Eh?: A Critical
Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada. Ed. Camille A. Nelson and Charmaine A. Nelson
(Concord, Ont.: Captus Press, 2004), 429-55.
Week 11, Apr 19, Lecture 8 (CA3)
Mosaic in Media
Topics: the development of multicultural and multiethnic broadcasting, media and minorities, national, cultural and
Canadian content in the media, Canadian newspapers
Readings: • Augie Fleras, “Media and Minorities in a Post-Multicultural Society: Overview and Appraisal,” in
Ethnicity and Culture in Canada: The Research Landscape. Ed. J.W. Berry and J.A. Laponce (Toronto: University of
Toronto Press, 1994), 267-92. • Edwardson, Ryan, “Other Voices The Development of Ethnic Broadcasting in
Canada” in Racism, Eh?: A Critical Inter-Disciplinary Anthology of Race and Racism in Canada, 316-26.
Week 12, Apr 26, Lecture 9 (CA4)
Is Canada a Multifaith Society?
Topics: the continuing presence of the religious (and that dominantly, Christian) in a pluralized, secularized Canada.
Readings: • Robin Mathews, “Religion in Canada: Its Effects on Canadian Identity,” and • “Religion, Economics
and Social Structure,” in Canadian Identity: Major Forces Shaping the Life of a People (Ottawa: Steel Rail
Publishing, 1988), 68-84, 85-96.
Response paper 2 is due.
Week 13, May 3, Lecture 10 (AU1)
Indigenous Australia
Topics: cultural relativism, perceptions of the land and the Aborigine from colonial to postcolonial times, new
historiography breaking “the Great Australian Silence,” Stolen Generations, the Landrights movement, the MaboJudgement that overruled the doctrine of terra nullius, Reconciliation.
Readings: • Kay Schaffer and Sidonie Smith, “Introduction,” in Indigenous Australian Voices. Ed. Jennifer
Sabbioni et al. (New Jersey: Rutgers, 1998), pages. • Geoffrey Stokes, “Citizenship and Aboriginality: Two
Conceptions of Identity in Aboriginal Political Thought,” in The Politics of Identity in Australia. Ed. Geoffrey Stokes
(Cambridge: CUP, 1997), 158-71.
Week 14, May 10, Lecture 11 (AU2)
Multicultural Australia
Topics: Australia’s history of immigration: a series of comings; the White Australia Policy: official assimilationism;
multiculturalism regarded both as an official policy to treat social issues raised by increased immigration and a means
of nation formation; major ethnic groups; Hungarians in Australia; Australia’s position in relation to Britain and the
United States, republicanism, Australian national identity.
Readings: • Ian H. Burnley, The Impact of Immigration on Australia: A Demographic Approach (South Melbourne,
Vic.: Oxford UP, 2001), Chapter 11: Review and Prospect, pp. 336-349. • Egon Kunz, Magyarok Ausztráliában
(Budapest: Teleki László Alapítvány, 1997), 213-225. • Marc McKenna, “A History of the Inevitable Republic,” in
Australia, Republic or Monarchy? Legal and Constitutional Issues. Ed. M.A. Stephenson and Clive Turner (St Lucia,
Qld: U of Queensland P, 1994), 50-71.
Week 15, May 17
Revision
Response paper 3 is due.
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