Unit information: Race in America in 2020/21

Unit name	Race in America
Unit code	HISTM0093
Credit points	20
Level of study	M/7
Teaching block(s)	Teaching Block 2 (weeks 13 - 24)
Unit director	Dr. Stephen Mawdsley
Open unit status	Not open
Pre-requisites	None
Co-requisites	None
School/department	Department of History (Historical Studies)
Faculty	Faculty of Arts

Description including Unit Aims

This unit examines the ideology of race in America and how it has shaped the nation from the antebellum era to the end of the twentieth century. Through a series of thematic case studies, students will explore the social construction of race and its consequences for laws, customs, and practices. The aim of this unit is to offer a nuanced account of race relations, by incorporating several types of sources and perspectives. Some example subjects that will be explored in this unit include:

• Whiteness (construction and practice)
• Identity (formation and activism)
• Intersections (race, gender, class, and region)
• Migration (domestic and international)
• Sexuality (constructions and meanings)
• Eugenics and the ‘science of race’
  

Violence

Intended Learning Outcomes

1. Identify and analyse recent historiographical developments and longer-term trends in
2. American history and the history of race.
3. Analyse, synthesise and evaluate a range of primary sources using appropriate methodologies.
4. Design and frame a research question within relevant historiographies, theories and methodologies.
5. Compose an extended historical argument rooted in primary source analysis.

Teaching Information

One two-hour weekly seminar.

Assessment Information

5000-word essay (100%). [ILOs 1-4].

Reading and References

Gail Bederman, Manliness and Civilization: A Cultural History of Gender and Race in the United States, 1880-1917

Peter Cozzens, The Earth Is Weeping: The Epic Story of the Indian Wars for the American West

Matthew Frye Jacobson, Whiteness of a Different 'Color': European Immigrants and the Alchemy of Race

Rachel A Feinstein, When Rape was Legal: 'the' Untold History of Sexual Violence during Slavery

Siobhan B. Somerville, Queering the 'Color' Line: Race and the Invention of Homosexuality in American Culture

Julie M. Weise, Corazón' de Dixie: 'Mexicanos' in the U.S. South since 1910