Professor Birgit Brander Rasmussen
ER&M 300: Junior Seminar
Time: Wednesday 1:30-3:20 PM
Place: WLH 011
Office: HGS 2683
Office Hours: By Appointment
E-Mail: birgit.branderrasmussen@yale.edu
Phone: 436-3539
Comparative Ethnic Studies: Histories, Theories, Methods, and Practices
Course Description:
This course introduces students to the interdisciplinary field of Comparative Ethnic
Studies. This is an enormous and influential body of scholarship with a unique disciplinary and
institutional history. The course begins by introducing students to the field and to its concerns
and methods. It then proceeds to survey the histories of each of the major ethnic groups: African
Americans, Native Americans, European Americans (particularly Irish and Jewish immigrants),
Chicano/as and Asian Americans. How did these groups become part of the United States?
What historically specific events and developments led to their particular ethno-racial
formations? Historical texts will provide crucial information while also serving as examples of
the state of the field at particular historical moments. We will then turn to a range of important
theories of race and ethnicity before considering how such scholarships helps us understand
social institutions ranging from prisons to citizenship. The course will conclude with a series of
group presentations on contemporary, cutting-edge Ethnic Studies scholarship reflecting the
diverse directions and concerns of the field. Throughout, we will pay attention to the particular
insistence in Ethnic Studies on the relationship between scholarship and contemporary political
issues and struggles. As evident from the syllabus, this is a reading-intensive course. Written
assignments will help us process the information and will require students to link what they read
to their own subject-locations and ethno-racial histories. Attendance in class, engaged
participation, and timely completion of all assignments are essential to passing the course.
Required Readings
Ronald Takaki, A Different Mirror: A History of Multicultural America
Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
Glen Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition
Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America
Grace Lee Bogs with Scott Kurashige, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable
Activism for the 21st Century
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorBlindness
Film: The Fight for Ethnic Studies (1999)
Class Schedule
Week 1: January 14
Introduction to Course: Comparative Ethnic Studies then and now.
View documentary The Fight for Ethnic Studies and YouTube clip “Radical Futures” at
http://vimeo.com/54031902.
Written “Introduction” submitted electronically is due by the end of the day.
Week 2: January 21
Ethnic Studies: Institutional Formations and Challenges.
Bell hooks, selections from Teaching to Transgress, posted at Classesv2@yale.edu
Ramon A. Gutierrez, “Ethnic Studies: Its Evolution in American Colleges and
Universities” posted at Classesv2@yale.edu
Gary Okihiro, “The Future of Ethnic Studies” at
http://chronicle.com/article/The-Future-of-Ethnic-Studies/66092/
Kenneth Monteiro, “Who Gets to Define Ethnic Studies?” at
http://chronicle.com/article/Who-Gets-to-Define-Ethnic/66093/;
San Francisco State College of Ethnic Studies “History” and “Mission” at
http://www.sfsu.edu/~ethnicst/index.html
Arizona House Bill 2281 at http://www.azleg.gov/legtext/49leg/2r/bills/hb2281s.pdf;
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Recommended: Ferguson and Beyond: Race, Policing, and Social Justice
January 26, 7-9 p.m.
Week 3: January 28
Comparative Ethnic Histories in the U.S.: 1.0
Writing Assignment # 1 Handout
Ronald Takaki: A Different Mirror: A History of Multi-Cultural America, pgs. 1-205.
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Week 4: February 4
Writing Assignment # 1 Due
Ronald Takaki: A Different Mirror: A History of Multi-Cultural America, pgs. 205-445.
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Week 5: February 11
Theories of Race and Ethnicity: Racial Formation, Intersectionality, Post-Racial Racism
Michael Omi and Howard Winant, selections from Racial Formation in the United States
from 1960s to 1980s at Classesv2@yale.edu.
Kimberlee Crenshaw, “Demarginalizing the Intersection of Race and Sex: A Black
Feminist Critique of Antidiscrimination Doctrine, Feminist Theory, and Antiracist
Politics” at ttp://www.newschool.edu/tcds/wr09reader_gender/10_
Crenshaw_Demarginalizing%20the%20Intersection%20of%20Race.pdf ;
Ian Haney Lopez, “Post-Racial Racism: Racial Stratification and Mass Incarceration in
the Age of Obama.”
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Week 6: February 18
The Limits of Multiculturalism and the Persistence of Inequality: Theorizing Racial
Privilege.
Lisa Lowe, “Imagining Los Angeles in the Production of Multiculturalism” in Immigrant
Acts.
Cheryl Harris, “Whiteness as Property,” George Lipsitz, “The Possessive Investment
in Whiteness,” Neil Foley, “Becoming Hispanic: Mexican Americans and
Whiteness” at Classesv2@yale.edu.
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Week 7: February 25
Queer Of Color Feminism
Audre Lorde, Sister Outsider
Grace Hong and Roderick Ferguson, “Introduction” in Strange Affinities: The Gender and
Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization, on classesv2@yale.edu
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Recommended: Yale Asian American Studies Conference, February 27
http://aacc.yalecollege.yale.edu/asian-american-studies-conference-2015
Week 8: March 4
Decolonization and the rise of Indigenous Studies.
Glen Coulthard, Red Skin, White Masks: Rejecting the Colonial Politics of Recognition,
selections TBA
Lisa Nakamura, “Indigenous Circuits: Navajo Women and the Racialization of Early Electronic
Manufacture” on classesv2@yale.edu
Idle No More Official Webpage at http://idlenomore.ca/
Native American and Indigenous Studies Association Website http://www.naisa.org
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
SPRING RECESS
Week 9: March 25
Immigration and Race in the U.S.
Lisa Lowe, Immigrant Acts: On Asian American Cultural Politics (Chapters 1, 2, 7)
Mae Ngai, Impossible Subjects: Illegal Aliens and the Making of Modern America,
pp. 1-14, 225-270.
Trail of Dreams Website at http://www.trail2010.org/about/
Aura Bogado, “Undocubus: A Journey from Arizona to the DNC [video] at
http://www.thenation.com/blog/169742/undocubus-journey-arizona-dnc-video
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Week 10: April 1
Slavery by Another Name?
Michelle Alexander, The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of ColorBlindness.
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
NO CLASS APRIL 8. USE THIS TIME TO WORK ON YOUR FINAL PROJECT
Week 11: April 15
The Business of Detention
Avery Gordon, “Globalism and the prison industrial complex: an interview with Angela
Davis” at classesv2
Eric Schlosser, “The Prison-Industrial Complex” at
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/199812/prisons
Laura Sullivan, “Prison economics help drive Arizona immigration law” at
http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=130833741
Seth Freed Wesler, “Dispatch from Detention: A Rare Look Inside Our ‘Humane’
Immigrant Jails” in Colorlines at
http://colorlines.com/archives/2012/01/dispatch_from_detention_this_is_what_humane_
deportation_looks_like.html
Anne McClintock, “Paranoid Empire” in States of Emergency at classesv2
Ruth Gilmore, “What is to be Done?” in Golden Gulag: Prisons, Surplus, Crisis, and
Opposition in Globalizing California at classesv2.
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Week 12: April 22
Stand Up, Fight Back: Activism in the 21st Century
Grace Lee Bogs with Scott Kurashige, The Next American Revolution: Sustainable
Activism for the 21st Century.
David Bacon, “How Mississipi’s Black/Brown Strategy Beat the South’s Anti-Immigrant
Wave” at http://www.thenation.com/article/167465/how-mississippisblackbrown-strategy-beat-souths-anti-immigrant-wave
Stephen Pitti, “In the Spirit of Selma: Nine Students Arrested in Georgia for Protesting
Discriminatory Education Policies” at http://www.huffingtonpost.com/stephen-pitti/thespirit-of-selma-nine-_b_6447202.html
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Writing Assignment # 2 due in my box by Friday at noon.
Week 13: April 29
Readings TBA
Student-designed unit, to be determined by popular vote.
Reading Reaction due by 10 p.m. the day before class.
Written “Reflection” to be submitted electronically at the end of the day.
Course Requirements:
1. Attendance and Participation: You must attend class and group sessions faithfully; you must
have completed the readings by the due dates; you must participate in class discussion.
Repeated absences will hurt your grade and may result in a failing grade. You must notify me in
advance if you will be absent.
2. Students must write an initial “Introduction” telling me who they are, what they know about
Ethnic Studies, and what attracts them to the course. It must be submitted electronically at the
end of the day, Wednesday January 14. They must also write a final “Reflection” in which they
reflect on what they have learned in the course, due at the end of class.
3. Each student must post 8 out of 11 reading reaction pieces with 2 discussion questions.
4. Vision Exercise modeled on David Harvey’s “Appendix Edilia” in Spaces of Hope, on
Classesv2
5. Each student must design one class-unit, according to their interests. As a class, we will vote
to select one for the final day of the class. The “winning” student will lead that class.
6. Final project due on the last day of Reading Week (Yale College final deadline)
Grading:
Attendance and Participation (20%)
8 Reading Reaction Pieces with Discussion Questions (20%)
Vision Exercise (20%)
Class Unit Design (10%)
Final Project (30%)
General Policies
1. Late papers will be deducted one half grade for each calendar day of tardiness. I will not
accept papers that are more than a week late. Please look over this syllabus, look over your
other classes and plan your work ahead.
2. All assignments must be typed, double-spaced with 1 inch margins. Use Chicago citation
style.
3. Plagiarism is a very serious offense. It is the use of other people's ideas and/or words without
acknowledgment. Err on the side of caution.
4. E-mail me if you must miss a class.
My Office
It can be hard to find – do not be deterred. Go to the Hall of Graduate Studies, go through the
gate, turn left through the arches, follow the path to your left to the door which is marked A (for
A-wing). I am on the second floor, first door to the left. My office does not have wheel-chair
access. Let me know if you have a hard time with stairs for any reason, and we will meet
elsewhere.