SOC 295-01 - Special Topic: Global Perspectives on Racisms, Science, and the State

4 credits (Spring)

This course compares how the idea of race and the practice of sorting people by perceived race have varied over time in the Americas and globally. It also examines the ways in which people have used science to legitimate and advanced official racial classifications and policies. In particular, the course considers (1) the part played by state institutions like the census in reflecting and making racial categories, (2) the role of science in creating and giving its seal of approval to racial taxonomies, (3) the global spread of ethno-racial ways of classifying people as well as of “color-blind” ideologies of equality, and (4) new scientific claims about the reality of race. The international eugenics movement serves as a window into how a community of experts contributed to the diffusion of racialized public policies.

Prerequisite: SOC 111.
Instructor: Cook-Martin