Mixed Race Studies

(19) Half-frican: Black Identity in the Caribbean, England, and the United States

The Colloge of Wooster, Wooster, Ohio
2011

Shannon King, Assistant Professor of History

During the last presidential election, Rush Limbaugh, the controversial and conservative Republican radio personality, dubbed Barack H. Obama, our 44th President of the United States, as a “Half-frican.” Limbaugh, in his own way, was getting at Obama’s multiracial and multicultural background, which at the time seemed unusual to many Americans. In this seminar, we will examine black identity by engaging literature, history, autobiography, and memoir that address how people of African descent have grappled with their own identity in the Caribbean, England, and the United States. The objective of the seminar is to de-center the notion that black identity and culture is based on skin color or necessarily nationality by illustrating how identity formation is a process. By using an interdisciplinary approach as well as a range of sources, we will learn how immigration, wars, racism, and other social and political forces forged black identity. Readings may include: Notes on a Native Son by James Baldwin; A Mercy by Toni Morrison; Color me English by Caryl Phillips; and Brother, I’m Dying by Edwidge Danticat.

(ANT/NAS 493): Mixed Blood: Looking at the Relationship Between Africans and Native Americans

Creighton University
Omaha, Nebraska
Fall 2005

Rev. Raymond A. Bucko, S.J., Professor of Anthropology

In this course the relationship between Africans and Native Americans will be explored.  “Africans and Native Americans worked as slaves and as free men together.  Both groups played important role in the shaping of the history of this country and the relationships that had are often overlooked and unknown.

Learning Objectives:

1. Learn and understand the complex relationships between Africans and Native Americans.
2. Examine pre and post-Civil War African and Native relationship.

Texts:

• Katz, William Loren. Black Indians A Hidden Heritage. New York: Anthneum Books for young Readers, 1986.
• Minges, Patrick. Black Indian Slave Narratives. John F. Blair Publisher, 2004.
• Porter, Kenneth W. The Black Indians. Gainesville: The University Press of Florida, 1996.

For more information, click here.

English R1A: Keeping it Real?: Racial & Queer Passing in American Literature

University of California, Berkeley
Fall 2010

Rosa Marti­nez

“I had a literature rather than a personality, a set of fictions about myself.”
—Kafka Was the Rage by Anatole Broyard

This course intends to explore the “art” of racial passing and masquerade in American literature and culture through a diverse sample of American novels and short stories, such as traditional narratives of black-to-white passing, which is historically prevalent particularly in African-American literature, and other modes of passing, for instance gender and ethnic ambiguity as well as posing and the “closeting” of one’s sexuality. What are the connections or disjunctions between “closeting,” posing, and crossing the gender or color line? By focusing on the trope of the passing figure, we will ask how people and imagined characters negotiate their identity in various and varying social spaces and also, how authors disclose the frailty of social order regarding sexuality, race and the body to make alliances in unimagined ways. Venturing out of the closet as another and as they please, these passing figures are, indeed, queer. Yet what are the personal costs in relinquishing a disfavored identity for a favored one?

This course intends to hone your reading and writing skills, and will focus on helping you make thoughtful questioning and “interesting use of the texts you read in the essays you write.” Through a gradual process of outlining, rewriting and revising, you will produce 32 pages of written work (including brief response papers and three 3-4 page argumentative essays).

Book List

Álvar Núñez Cabeza de Vaca, Naufragios (1542); William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom (1860); Joseph Harris, Rewriting (2006); Nella Larsen, Passing (1929); Mark Twain, Pudd’nhead Wilson (1894); a course reader containing critical readings.

EWS [Ethnic & Women’s Studies] 450(4) Course ID:003122: Multiracial and Hybrid Identities

California State Polytechnic University, Pomona
2010-09-22

Interdisciplinary exploration of the development, meaning, and sociopolitical implications of hybridity in constructing racial, ethnic and gender identities in the U.S. Status and experience of hybrid people, e.g. biracial/multiracials examined through synthesis of anthropology, arts, history, literature, sociology,
ethnic and gender studies.

PHIL 3830. Philosophy and Race

University of North Carolina, Charlotte

Cross-listed as AFRS 3830.  This course both examines the role of the concept of race in the Western philosophical canon, and uses current philosophical texts and methods to examine Western discourses of race and racism.  Issues such as whiteness, double consciousness, the black/white binary, Latino identity and race, ethnicity, mixed-race identity, and the intersection of race with gender and class will also be examined.  (Alternate years)

Honors 301: Mixed Race Art and Identity

DePaul University, Chicago, Illinois
Autumn Quarter 2011-2012

Laura Kina, Associate Professor Art, Media, & Design

Mixed Race Art & Identity will focus on contemporary art and popular culture to critically examine images of miscegenation and mixed race and post-ethnoracial identity constructs. Students will learn about the history and emergence of the multiracial movement in the United States from the 1967 Loving v. Virginia Supreme Court Case, which overturned our nation’s last anti-miscegenation law; to the emergence of the multiracial movement in the 1990s leading up to the 2000 U.S. Census, which for the first time allowed multiracial individuals to self-identify as more than one race; to the ways in which discussions of race have unfolded following the 2008 election of President Obama and the results of the 2010 Census.  Through the vehicle of art and cultural studies, students will reflect upon our present moment and the increasingly ethnically ambiguous generation that is coming of age. This seminar course is designed to be interactive and will include: class discussions, leading or co-leading a reading, online reflection posts on readings, viewing films, art lectures, a visiting artist talk, a mid-term paper, and a final creative group curatorial project.

Course Books/Readings and Research Resources

Required Text Books (Available through the University Bookstore and on reserve at the LPC library. We will read select chapters from these two books.)

• DaCosta, Kimberly McClain. Making Multiracials: State, Family, and Market in the Redrawing of the Color Line. Stanford, California: Stanford University Press, 2007.
• Beltrán, Mary and Camilla Fojas, ed. Mixed Race Hollywood. New York: NYU Press, 2008.

Required E-reserve and/or Online Readings (Available through library.depaul.edu or through the course blackboard site, Mixedheritagecenter.org (MHC), or online.)

• (Online) Cotter, Holland. “The Topic is Race; the Art is Fearless.” The New York Times.com. 30 March, 2008.1 Jan. 2009 .
• (MHC) Dariotis, Wei Ming. “Hapa: Word of Power,” Mixed Heritage Center, 2008..
• (E-res) Duus, Masayo. Ch 5 “Becoming a Nisei.” The life of Isamu Noguchi : Journey without Borders. Trans. Peter Duus.
  Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004. 149-175
• (E-res) Elam, Michele. 2011. Introduction.” The Souls of Mixed Folk: Race, Politics, and Aesthetics in the New Millennium.
  Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2011. 1-26
• (E-res) Pinder, Kymberly N. “Biraciality and Nationhood in Contemporary American Art.” Race-ing Art History.
  Ed. Kymberly N. Pinder. New York: Routledge, 2001. 391-401.
• (E-res) Piper, Adrian. “Passing for White, Passing for Black.” The Visual Culture Reader. Ed. Nicholas Mirzoeff.
  New York: Routledge, 1998. 353-362.

Research and selections from original artist interviews with contemporary artists from the forthcoming book “War Baby/ Love Child: Mixed Race Asian American Art” edited by Laura Kina and Wei Ming Dariotis (University of Washington Press, 2013) and related exhibition co-curated by Kina and Dariotis (DePaul University Art Museum April 26 – June 30, 2013, Chicago, IL and Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience August 9, 2013 – January 19, 2014, Seattle, WA. ) The artists covered include: Mequita Ahuja, Albert Chong, Serene Ford, Kip Fulbeck, Stuart Gaffney, Louie Gong, Jane Jin Kaisen, Lori Kay, Li-lan, Richard Lou, Laurel Nakadate, Samia Mirza, Chris Naka, Gina Osterloh, Adrienne Pao, Cristina Lei Rodriguez, Amanda Ross-Ho, Debra Yepa-Pappan, and Jenifer Wofford.

Film, Video, TV, and Radio

• Chasing Daybreak: A Film About Mixed Race in America, Dir. Justin Leroy. Pro. Matt Kelley. Mavin Foundation, 2005.
• Isamu Noguchi: Stones and Paper, Dir. Hiro Narita. Perf. Christo, Linda Hunt, Isamu Noguchi.
• A Pictures & Words production in assoc. with Thirteen-WNET. Princeton, N.J.: Films for the Humanities & Sciences, 1997.
• MiXeDmE, Dir. Kristen Lee. Pro. Nancy Wen. Ed. Chris Woon. Los Angeles: UCLA Asian American Studies, 2010.
• Muni to the Marriage, Dir. Stuart Gaffney. Independent film, 2004.
• Silences, Dir. Octavio Warnock-Graham. A production of Octave Films, 2006.
• “Kip Fulbeck Mixed Kids,” The TODAY Show. MSNBC. March 28, 2010.

Supplemental E-reserve and Reserve Readings are also available through the LPC Library

Anthropology 324L/American Studies 321: The Black Indian Experience in the United States

University of Texas, Austin
Fall 2011

Circe Dawn Sturm, Associate Professor of Anthropology
University of Texas, Austin

This course explores the entwined histories, cultures and identities of African American and Native American people in the United States. Long neglected in popular and scholarly accounts, the Black Indian experience sheds light on comparative histories and legacies of racial formation, as well as the conjoined role that these two groups played in the emergence of the United States as an independent nation. Students will be exposed to a range of voices, including Black Indian artists, scholars and activists, as well as other scholars working in a variety of disciplines, including anthropology, history, Native American Studies, African American Studies, American Studies and women’s studies. The readings will range from primary historical documents and ethnographies, to creative and autobiographical accounts. Course content will cover key issues and topics critical to Black Indian communities, such as US settler colonialism, American Indian slaveholding, cultural and linguistic exchange, kinship practices, forms of resistance, and ongoing struggles for tribal citizenship, with an in depth focus on several different tribes as they are represented in the required texts. Throughout the course, we will focus particular attention on how American race making practices have shaped Native American and African American views of one another and overshadowed the contexts in which they have interacted. Students are also required to consider how their own perceptions of race, culture, and indigeneity might limit their understanding of how American Indians, African Americans, and those of both heritages, answer the question, “Who am I,” for themselves.

SOC 240 – People of Mixed Descent

University of San Francisco
2011-2012

This course examines the experiences of mixed race populations (mulattos, mestizos, mixed blood Native Americans, and Eurasians) in comparative perspective. Using these experiences, as well as sociological theories (assimilation, third culture, marginality, and multiculturalism), we study how race is a social and political construct, with tangible and material repercussions. Offered intermittently.

Just Between Sisters: Gender, Race, Class, Sexuality, and Relationships of Mixed-Race Women and Girls (AMS) (HRJ) (GEN) (HUM) HUMN 7302

Southern Methodist University
Fall 2012

Evelyn L. Parker, Associate Professor of Practical Theology

In 1967 the US Supreme Court ruled state miscegenation laws unconstitutional. Instituted in 1691, the state laws sought to prevent sexual mixing across racial lines protecting the “purity” of European Americans. Since 1967 the population of mixed-race children has more than tripled. Among the demands of mixed-race people have been new census policy that recognizes various ways of expressing their identity. Additionally, the mixed-race movement has raised awareness about their experiences and inspired the development of Mixed-race Studies in academic settings. Among the many issues of Mixed-race Studies there are questions about female relationships and intersectional questions of race, gender, class, and sexuality that merit examination. The intersectional questions refer to Kimberle Crenshaw’s concept of intersectionality, ways in which race and gender interact to shape the multiple dimensions of black women’s lives. Crenshaw argues that the intersection of racism and sexism operate in black women’s lives in ways that a single dimensional analysis fails to reveal. This course builds on Crenshaw’s concept to explore the various ways race, gender, class and sexuality intersect in shaping the identity of mixed-race women and girls and their relationships with other women and girls. Through the use of novels, memoirs, and film, this course focuses on intersectional and relational questions of first generation African/African Diasporic (black) and European (white) mixed-race women and girls. This course may be applied to the following curricular field concentrations: American Studies, Gender Studies, Human Rights and Social Justice, and Humanities.

AIS 350 : Black-Indians in the Americas

San Francisco State University
Fall 2011

In this course students will be introduced to some of the major sociological and historical factors that have given rise to multiracial cultural identities in American Indian communities throughout the Americas and the Caribbean with a specific focus on Black-Indians within American Indian and African American Studies. Students will explore the ways that mainstream society comes to understand American Indians and their location within the social, legal, political, and economic sphere of race relations in the West. Students will engage key concepts and theories regarding blood quantum, sovereignty, and land rights as they apply to Natives of mixed ancestry. We will begin with a comprehensive analysis of the notion of a fixed or essential monolithic American Indian identity and how this construction has influenced social, legal, and political understanding of mixed-race Native Americans today and their role within the greater American Indian community. Issues of authenticity, group and community membership, as well as cultural vs. racial formation will be addressed in our weekly readings, lectures, discussions, films, guest lectures, and projects.