AASP412

Cross-listed with: AMST412. Credit only granted for: AASP412 or AMST412. Whiteness is a social technology that organizes individuals, hierarchizes social groups, and structures modes of exploitation. That is to say, "whiteness" names a set of power relations. This semester-long course will study its historical origins, its transformations over time, and the role it plays as an organizing force of political, economic, cultural, and domestic American life. Further, this course will draw on critical intellectual traditions within the inter-discipline of African American Studies in order to imagine the future(s) of whiteness, including abolitionist futures where democratic modes of social organization displace and undo racialized hierarchies.