RACE AND EMPIRE IN AMERICAN CULTURE
Rutgers, Newark: Fall 2013
Graduate Seminar: AMST 26:050:521 and ENGLISH 26:352:516
Wednesdays, 5:30-8:10
Location: Conklin 233
Instructor: Prof. Laura Lomas
Office: Hill 519
Hours: Monday 4-5 and by appointment
Contact Information: llomas@andromeda.rutgers.edu
and 973.353.5203
COURSE DESCRIPTION:
While it has long been possible to narrate and theorize “race” and “empire” in distinct and seemingly unrelated academic discussions, this seminar takes as axiomatic that racial categories change over time in ways that constitutively relate to the exigencies of empire, especially in the brief history of the United States. Drawing on narratives, theory, texts and cultural histories of the late 18 th
through the 21 st
centuries, our readings analyze through the prism of racialized subjectivity the United States’ imperial trajectory from colonization, “expansion” and annexation, to transplantation, economic regionalization, cultural imposition and military intervention or occupation. While we will become acquainted with representative voices in different U.S. ethnic literary traditions, our comparative approach moves beyond a black/white binary to enable us to see how these domestic traditions borrow from, build upon and develop through relations among racialized groups, domestically and internationally. For this reason, our readings necessarily address figures, theoretical concepts and critical traditions that move outside the bounds of the “nation” per se--outer-nationally, translingually, transnationally, or in what
Kirsten Silva Gruesz has called a “transamerican” field. We will consider the relevance of what
Brent Edwards calls the “practice of diaspora” for Latina/o and Asian-American traditions and consider the usefulness of Latin American metaphors of Creole-ness, hybridity, mestizaje, etc. for thinking about race relations in the United States. Our second axiom derives from Kimberlé
Crenshaw’s theory of intersectionality: that we live race differently based on other determining conditions of gender, sexuality, class, language, nationality, citizenship-status, etc. Accordingly, we will ask how theorists of racialization and empire portray (or ignore) gender and sexuality’s role in shaping subjects of race, class and empire. Our pairings of literary and theoretical texts may include but are not limited to: José Martí, Arturo Schomburg, CLR James, Stuart Hall, Paul
Gilroy, Mary Louise Pratt, Walter Mignolo, Gloria Anzaldúa, Jaime Manrique, Jack D.
Forbes;Victor Bascara, Brent Edwards, Raul Coronado, Irene Vilar and Laura Briggs. Reading assignments will include clusters of literature and theory, usually focused around a specific text.
Writing assignments take the form of an oral presentation to the seminar, a review essay and a final 15-20 page essay that contributes an original interpretation of a cultural text (broadly defined) or/and engages the theoretical debates and discussions introduced by scholars working on comparative racialization in the context of empire.
OBJECTIVES:
1.
Students are expected to become conversant with and actively engage in contemporary debates, interdisciplinary methods and theoretical discussions of racialization and empire in the United States and the Americas.

Lomas, Race and Empire in American Culture
2.
Students are expected to grapple with the complex domestic and outernational cultural history of the United States through its cultural forms, and specifically, subtraditions of
African-American, Native, Latina/o and Asian-American ltieratures and cultures, in addition to Caribbean, British and Latin American cultural theory.
3.
Students are expected to produce an essay that draws on literary and historical research, demonstrates knowledge of the field through a review of relevant secondary literature and/or makes an argument through a close-reading of a cultural text with which the student has become acquainted in the seminar.
4.
Students are expected to learn and use appropriately key concepts and theoretical terminology of relevance to interpretations of race and empire in the Americas, including
“diaspora,” “translation,” “race,” “empire,” “trans-American,” “subaltern,” “postcolonial,” “exile,” “modernity,” “periphery,” “mestizaje,” “hybridity.”
5.
Students are expected to demonstrate skills in public speaking and make a concise seminar report based on an essay that interprets literature, theory and history.
REQUIREMENTS :
Attendance and Participation: As a graduate seminar, the expectation here is that you will not miss class, and that during our meetings you will contribute in the spirit of participatory citizenship, which is to say, substantively but not overbearingly. If you have questions about this framework, please ask. In addition, each student should submit in writing two questions that have emerged through your reading that week. The questions should demonstrate your comprehension of the text to which you make reference in them. These should be submitted on
Blackboard by 8 pm on Tuesday (the day before our meeting).
Readings/Seminar presentations: For each class meeting, one person (or a small team, depending on enrollment) will introduce the cluster of literary, critical and historical readings by preparing a short essay and bibliography. The essay should respond to the literary text, theory and criticism in addition to situating our topic in the context of other related texts and scholarship. When presenting the essay, the presenter(s) should conclude with a claim about how the texts contribute to the field of race and empire in the Americas. The bibliography should contain 5 entries (or more proportional to number of group members), and these may include relevant historical essays, historical source documents, parallel literary texts or cultural criticism. Every student should sign up for one seminar presentation. These short essays should be submitted on
Blackboard by 8 pm on Tuesday (the day before our meeting), so as to allow other seminar members to read your essay prior to meeting on Wednesday.
Book Review (1): Each student will prepare one critical/analytical review essay of a complete critical book on our required or recommended reading lists, written as if for a scholarly journal
(1000-1500 words). The choice of books is open.
Final Paper: Each student will complete a 15-page essay of literary, theoretical and cultural interpretation, or a review essay, developed from an abstract and annotated bibliography that students will create and submit to me by . You will design your final project in consultation with me. This paper will be due by at the beginning of our last class session, Wednesday, December
11. In conjunction with a writing partner, students will engage in a peer review and revise your essay to a near publishable form by the final deadline of 1 pm on December 18.
GRADING:
Attendance/Participation: 50%; Written Assignments: 50%
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Lomas, Race and Empire in American Culture
REQUIRED TEXTS (in order of reading)
James, C.L.R. Toussaint L’Ouverture: The Story of the Only Successful Slave Revolt in History,
A Play in Three Acts, Ed. Christian Hogsbjerg, Foreword Laurent Dubois. Durham: Duke
University Press, 2013. ISBN: 978-0-8223-5314-0.
James, C.L.R. Renegades, Castaways and Mariners: The Story of Herman Melville and the
World We Live In. Introduction by Donald E. Pease. Hanover: University Press of New
England, 2001. ISBN: 1-58495-095-X.
Guidotti-Hernández, Nicole. Unspeakable Violence: Remapping U.S. and Mexican National
Imaginaries . Durham: Duke University Press, 2011. ISBN 973-9-8223-5075-0.
Manrique, Jaime. Our Lives are the Rivers: A Novel. New York: Harper Collins, 2006. ISBN-
10: 0060820713; ASIN: B0046LUCYI
Venegas, Daniel. The Adventures of Don Chipote, or When Parrots Breast Feed. Ed. Nicolás
Kanellos. Trans. Ethraim Cash Brammer. Houston: Arte Público Press, 2000. ISBN: 978-
1-55885-297-6.
Rivera, Tomás. And the Earth Did Not Devour Him/ Y no se le tragó la tierra.
Trans.
Evangelina Vigil-Piñon. Houston: Arte Público Press, 1995. ISBN-10: 155885083X;
ISBN-13: 978-1558850835
De La Selva, Salomon. Tropical Town and Other Poems . Ed. Silvio Sirias. Houston: Arte
Público Press,
1999. ISBN-10: 1558852352; ISBN-13: 978-1558852358; (f.p. 1918). On
Open Library http://archive.org/stream/tropicaltownand00selvgoog#page/n16/mode/2up
Sellers-García, Sylvia. When the Ground Turns in Its Sleep. Riverhead, 2007. ISBN-10:
1594489548; ISBN-13: 978-1594489549.
Irene Vilar, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict. New York: Other
Press, 2009.ISBN 978-1-59051-320-0.
Briggs, Laura. Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico.
Berkeley: UC Press, 2003.
ISBN: 9780520232587
Linmarck, R. Zamora. Rolling the Rs. Kaya Press, 1997. ISBN-10: 1885030037
ISBN-13: 978-1885030030
Recommended:
Edwards, Brent Hayes. The Practice of Diaspora: Literature, Translation and the Rise of Black
Internationalism. Cambridge: Harvard Upress, 2003. ISBN: 0-674-01103-1
Fischer, Sibylle. Modernity Disavowed: Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the Age of
Revolution (Durham: Duke Upress, 2004)
Forbes, Jack D. Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the Evolution of
Red-Black Peoples (Urbana: University of Illinois, 1993).
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Lomas, Race and Empire in American Culture
Coronado, Raul, A World Not To Come: A History of Latino Writing and Print Culture.
Cambridge: Harvard U Press, 2013. ISBN: 973-0-674-07261-9.
López, Marissa K.
Chicano Nations: Hemispheric Origins of Mexican-American Literature.
New York University Press, 2011. ISBN: 978—0-8147-5262-3.
Kanellos, Nicolás . Hispanic Immigrant Literature: El Sueño del Retorno.
Austin: University of
Texas Press, 2011. ISBN: 978-0-292-74394-6.
Saldaña-Portillo, María Josefina.
The Revolutionary Imagination in the Age of Development.
Durham: Duke U Press, 2003. ISBN: 0-8223-3166-7.
Anzaldúa, Gloria.
Borderlands/La Frontera. San Francisco: Aunt Lute Books, 1987. ISBN-10:
1879960850 | ISBN-13: 978-1879960855
Victor Bascara, Model Minority Imperialism . Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press,
2006. ISBN-10: 0816645124; ISBN-13: 978-0816645121
Ferguson, Roderick and Grace Kyungwon Hong, Strange Affinities: Gender and Sexual
Politics of Comparative Racialization.
ISBN-10: 082234985X; ISBN-13: 978-
0822349853.
Durham: Duke U Press, 2011.
Syllabus of Readings
Week 1 (Sept. 4): Introduction
NB: Optional Class Visit to see MoMA’s “American Modernism” and Gallery Talk:
Modern America through the Eyes of its Writers. Thursday September 9, 11:30 am.
Week 2 (Sept. 11): The Unmarked (White) Discourse of Modernity
Mary Louise Pratt, “Modernity and Periphery: ”
W. Mignolo, “Coloniality: The Darker Side of Modernity” 39-49.
Immanuel Kant, “What is Enlightenment?”;
M. Foucault, “What is Enlightenment?” and “Nietzsche, Genealogy, History,” in Paul Rabinow, ed. The Foucault Reader. New York: Pantheon, 1984.
Chatterjee, Partha, “Our Modernity.” Rotterdam/Dakar: SEPHIS and CODRESRIA, 1997
Recommended: Walter D. Mignolo, The Darker Side of Western Modernity (Duke, 2011)
Week 3 (Sept. 18): Monolingualism and “Americo-Centrism” in Diaspora Studies
W.E.B. DuBois, “Of our Spiritual Strivings,” and “The Sorrow Songs,” The Souls of Black Folk
(BB)
Paul Gilroy, Black Atlantic,
“The Black Atlantic as a Counter-Culture of Modernity,” and
“Jewels Brought from Bondage,”
(BB)
Brent Edwards, “The Uses of Diaspora”
Social Text (2001) ; Prologue and Variations on a
Preface, from The Practice of Diaspora.
Recommended: Stuart Hall, “Race, Articulation and Societies Structured in Dominance,” in
Black British Cultural Studies, Ed. Houston Baker, Manthia Diawara and Ruth H. Lindeborg
(Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996). 16-60.
Week 4 (Sept. 25): Black Insurgency and Empire
James, C.L.R.
Toussaint L’Ouverture;
James, CLR, “Epilogue” from The Black Jacobins (BB);
James, C.L.R. Renegades, Mariners and Castaways .
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Lomas, Race and Empire in American Culture
Recommended: Sibylle Fischer Modernity Disavowed : Haiti and the Cultures of Slavery in the
Age of Revolution (Duke, 2004).
Week 5 (Oct. 2): Violent Foundations of National Origins
Nicole Guidotti-Hernández, Unspeakable Violence: Remapping U.S. and Mexican National
Imaginaries .
Zitkala-Sa, “Schooldays of an Indian Girl.”
Jack D. Forbes, “Black Pioneers: Spanish-Speaking Afro-Americans of the Southwest” from
Afro-Latin@ Reader.
Recommended: Jack D. Forbes, Africans and Native Americans: The Language of Race and the
Evolution of Red-Black Peoples (Universty of Illinois Press, 1993)
Week 6 (Oct. 9): Latina/o Alternatives to Empire
Manrique, Jaime. Our Lives are the Rivers.
Recommended: Raul Coronado, A World Not to Come: A History of Latino Writing and Print
Culture .
Week 7 (Oct. 16): Making Revolution, Translating Racism
Martí, José. “My Race,” “The Truth About the United States,” “Letter from the Cuban Leaders” in the New York Herald; “Lucy Parsons,” “Henry Highland Garnet”
Roberto Zurbano, “For Cuba’s Blacks the Revolution has not Yet Begun” NYT and
“Cuba’s
Unfinished Revolution” (BB)
Schomburg, Arturo. “The Negro Digs Up His Past” and “A Plea for the Establishment of a Chair of Negro History,” from the
Afro-Latin@ Reader
Ada Ferrer, “The Silence of Patriots” from Raul Fernandez
José Martí’s Our Americanism
and
Lourdez Martínez Echazabal, José Martí: One Hundred Years Later
Recommended: Streeby, Shelly, Radical Sensations: World Movements, Violence and Visual
Culture (Duke U Press, 2013).
Week 8 (Oct. 23): Migrant Melancholia: Chicana/o Transnational Imaginaries
Daniel Venegas, The Adventures of Don Chipote or When Parrots Breast-Feed.
Maria Cristina Mena, “The Gold Vanity Set,” “The Birth of the God of War,” “The Sorcerer and
General Bisco,” The Collected Stories of Maria Cristina Mena
Gloria Anzaldúa,
Borderlands/La Frontera (Selections)
Recommended: Marissa López, Chicano Nations: Transnational Origins of Mexican-American
Literature (NYU 2011)
Alicia Schmidt Camacho, “Migrant Melancholia: Emergent Discourses of Mexican Migrant
Traffic in Transnational Space,” BB
Week 9 (Oct. 30): When We Arrive: Revolutionary Discourse in the Americas
Saldaña-Portillo, María Josefina “Epilogue” from
The Revolutionary Imagination in the
Americas and the Age of Development (2003) (BB)
Tomás Rivera,
Y no se le tragó la tierra/ And the Earth Did not Devour Him (1999).
Recommended: Ramón Saldívar, from Chicano Narrative.
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Lomas, Race and Empire in American Culture
Week 10 (Nov. 6): Centroamericanos in a Transamerican Crossroads
De La Selva, Salomon. Tropical Town and Other Poems
Sellers-Garcia, Sylvia, When the Ground Turns in its Sleep (Riverhead, 2007).
Recommended: Arturo Arias, “Central American-Americans: Invisibility, Power and
Represenation in the US Latino World;” Latino Studies 1.1 (2003):168-187;
MEETINGS TO DISCUSS FINAL ESSAY BEGIN
Week 11 (Nov. 13): Imperial Reproduction, Impossible Motherhood
Irene Vilar, Impossible Motherhood: Testimony of an Abortion Addict;
Briggs, Reproducing Empire: Race, Sex, Science and U.S. Imperialism in Puerto Rico; Luce
Irigaray on “Placental Economy” from
Je,Tu,Nous
Week 12 (Nov. 20): Model Minority Imperialism
R. Zamora Linmark, Rolling the Rs
Recommended: Victor Bascara, Model Minority Imperialism (BB)
ABSTRACTS AND BIBLIOGRAPHIES FOR FINAL ESSAYS DUE
Week 13 (Nov. 27): THANKSGIVING: Please watch at your leisure “ La Operación”. Screeing of film in DANA library for those who want to watch collectively during our class meeting time.
Week 14 (Dec. 4): Gender and Sexual Politics of Comparative Racialization
Kelly Loves Tony (view it at PBS: KellyLovesTony )
Recommended: Victor Bascara, “In the Middle: The Miseducation of a Refugee” in Grace
Kyungwon Hong and Roderick Ferguson, Strange Affinities.
Helen Jun, “Black Orientalism: Nineteenth Century Narratives of Race and US Citizenship” in
Grace Kyungwon Hong and Roderick Ferguson, Strange Affinities.
Lisa Marie Cacho, “Racialized Hauntings of the Devalued Dead,” in Grace Kyungwon Hong and
Roderick Ferguson, Strange Affinities.
Week 15 (Dec. 11): Student Presentation of Original or Review Essay. ESSAY IS DUE
PEER-REVIEWED, REVISED DRAFT DUE DECEMBER 18 1 pm.
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