Mixed Race Studies

French110s: From Haiti to New Orleans

John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute
Duke University
Fall 2010

Deborah Jenson

Haiti Lab: Undergraduate Opportunities

The first Humanities Laboratory at Duke, one of the key goals of the Haiti Lab is to bring innovative, interdisciplinary research more fully into the undergraduate experience at Duke and, indeed, to invite undergraduates to participate as researchers themselves.

The Haitian Revolution  (1791-1804) was a successful revolution against slavery, leading to the defeat of the French armies of Napoleon Bonaparte and the establishment of the first black republic in the New World. During the revolution, many Creole planters (white and of mixed race) and their households, including slaves, sought refuge elsewhere; by 1809, the population of New Orleans actually doubled with this “Haitian” influx. How did the culture and literature of nineteenth century New Orleans reflect Haitian influences? We will read fascinating Francophone New Orleans literature about the socio-racially complex cultures of slavery, the bourgeoisie, and the planters’ “aristocracy” in Louisiana. Did you know you could learn about the U.S. Civil War through French-language New Orleans novels that also integrate Creole poetry from colonial Saint-Domingue? Or that the first African-American short story was written in French, about Haiti? We will read about the drama of the historical Haitian maroon slave and poisoner Macandal, and about the Haiti-influenced libertine culture that bound together white men and women of color in the common law structure of plaçage. Students will do cultural research projects on subjects such as the cultural roots of Creole and Cajun cuisine, the Quadroon Balls, or the “voodoo queen” Marie Laveaux. In this course on French literature in our own historical and regional “backyard,” students will also explore the Haitian inspiration of Durham’s historic black “Hayti” neighborhood. Course taught in French.

For more information, click here.

ASNAMST 173S: Transcultural and Multiethnic Lives: Contexts, Controversies, and Challenges (AFRICAAM 173S, CSRE 173S)

Stanford University
Spring 2011

Stephen Murphy-Shigematsu

Lived experience of people who dwell in the border world of race and nation where they negotiate transcultural and multiethnic identities and politics. Comparative, historical, and global contexts such as family and class. Controversies, such as representations of mixed race people in media and multicultural communities. What the lives of people like Tiger Woods and Barack Obama reveal about how the marginal is becoming mainstream.

For more information, click here.

AAS 4570 – Passing in African-American Imagination

University of Virginia
The Carter G. Woodson Institute for African-American & African Studies
Spring 2011

Alisha Gaines, Post-Doctoral Fellow (English)
Duke University

This course considers the canonical African American literary tradition and popular culture texts that think through the boundaries of blackness and identity through the organizing trope of passing. We will engage texts that represent passing as a liberating performance act, a troubling crime against authenticity, an economic necessity, and/or a stunt of liberal heroics. By the end of the course we will evaluate how our thinking about passing inflects our understanding of supposedly stable categories of identity including gender, class, and sexuality as well as begin to think critically about the relationships between blood and the law, love and politics, opportunity and economics, and acting and being.

Questions to be considered include: What do we make of a literary tradition that supposedly gains coherence around issues of racial belonging but begins by questioning race itself?  What work does the highly gendered depictions of the “tragic mulatta” figure (a mixed-race woman undone by her periled existence between two racialized worlds) do for, and to, African American literature? What happens when the color line crosses you?  Or in other words, where is agency in this discussion?  Do we really know blackness when we see it?  Hear it?  How (and why) is blackness performed and for (and by) whom?  In what ways is identity shaped by who can and can’t pass?  How has globalization made blackness an even more accessible commodity?  How has hip hop?  And finally, aren’t we all passing for something?

For more information, click here.

SOCI 006 601 – Race and Ethnic Relations

University of Pennsylvania
College of Liberal and Professional Studies
Spring 2011

Tamara Nopper, Adjunct Professor of Asian American Studies

The election of Barack Obama as the United States’ first Black president has raised questions about whether we have entered a post-racial society. This course examines the idea of racial progress that is at the heart of such a question, paying close attention to how social scientists have defined and measured racial inequality and progress in the last century. We will consider how dramatic demographic shifts, the growing number of interracial families and individuals who identify as mixed-race, trans-racial adoptions, and the increased visibility of people of color in media, positions of influence, and as celebrities inform scholarly and popular debates about racial progress. Along with some classic works, we will also read literature regarding the class versus race debate and color-blind racism. In the process, students will become familiar with sociological data often drawn from in debates about racial progress and will also develop analytical and critical thinking skills.

For more information, click here.

4203W-01 – Racial Passing, Masquerade, and Transformation in African American Literature, Law, Film, and Culture

University of Connecticut
Fall 2010

Martha Cutter, Associate Professor of English

What is “race”? What is “whiteness”? What is “blackness”? What does it mean to be “mixed-race” or “multi-racial” in the US? This course will examine what racial passing—people who transform themselves from one race to another—can tell us about the meaning of race itself. Our methodology will be chronological as we test the idea that texts about passing and racial transformation both highlight, but also perhaps undermine, ideas about the meaning of race in a particular cultural and historical moment. Our focus will mainly be on twentieth and twenty-first century manifestations of racial passing and transformation, although we will also look at some earlier texts to get a sense of how ideas of race have changed over time. Our examination will also include scientific and legal texts which help us understand the meaning of blackness, whiteness, and race.

Texts: Charles Chesnutt, The House Behind the Cedars; William and Ellen Craft, Running a Thousand Miles for Freedom; Nella Larsen, Passing; George Schuyler, Black No More; Randall Kennedy, Sellout; Danzy Senna, Life on the Color Line; Spike Lee (Director), Bamboozled; Ariela Gross, What Blood Won’t Tell: A History of Race on Trial in America; Barbara Koenig, ed. Revising Race in a Genomic Age (Excerpts); other readings on racial science.

For more information, click here.

English 39695-001 ST: Racial Crossings

Kent State University
2006

Martha Cutter, Associate Professor of English

This course will examine literary and cultural treatments of individuals, authors, and characters who cross from one race to another, and sometimes also from one gender to another. This crossing may be metaphorical—for example, a white writer may attempt to write from the point of view of an African American character or a Native American character may try to “transcend” his or her race through various means. This crossing may also be actual—someone who is white may “pass” for black, or someone who is black may “pass” for white. We will look at novels, short stories, poems and films as cultural texts that depict racial crossing and passing. We will ask what these texts tell us about the way race is constructed and configured in society, culture, history, and the law. We will also attempt to understand how artists both assist and resist social and cultural constructions of the meaning of “race.” Does racial crossing fundamentally undermine or stabilize the meaning of “race”?

For more information, click here.

Media and Performance in Racial Passing: 2007 Heterodox Identities – LCST 2007 A

Eugene Lang College
The New School for Liberal Arts
Spring 2009

Orville Lee, Assistant Professor of Sociology

Racial passing is a ubiquitous and contentious feature of social and cultural life in the United States. Taking “passing” as an object of analysis, this course is organized around the question of whether social identity should be understood as a set of essential characteristics or as a type of “performance.” Readings and discussions center on the conceptualization of race; the dynamics and meaning of racial passing; the movement for the recognition of biracial identities; and the question of racial “authenticity” and the politics of the self. The case of racial passing is also compared to other cases of heterodox identity involving gender, sexuality, and social class.

SOCI3600 – The Multiracial Family

Univeristy of North Texas
Summer 2010

George Alan Yancey, Associate Professor of Sociology
University of North Texas

Academic study of the dynamics found in multiracial families. Important concepts in race/ethnicity studies such as assimilation, racial identity and pluralism. Other topics include passing, one-drop rule, interracial dating/marriage, bi- or multiracial identity and transracial adoption.

For more information, click here.

Ethnic Studies 064: Mixed Race Descent in the Americas

Mills College, Oakland, California
Fall 2010

Melinda Micco, Associate Professor of Ethnic Studies

This is an introductory course that examines the historical and theoretical development of identities and of communities of multiracial and multiethnic people. In the academy, in government, and in popular culture, the lives and experiences of racially mixed people, and how others perceive them, have become topics of intense debate and scrutiny since the late-1990s. Mostly recently, newly elected President Barack Obama’s racial and ethnic identity highlighted the issues and played a significant role in the 2008 presidential elections.

This course will examine the historical evolution of such terms as the “marginal man” and the “150% man” to understand the present concerns of racial and ethnic stereotyping. We will engage questions such as: Who are “mixed-race” people in the US? How are they perceived, described, and treated in various communities? What are the effects of various federal and state policies, such as anti-miscegenation laws, American Indian “relocation,” immigration, and Japanese American internment? What is the legacy of race-based chattel slavery on both African-American and non-African-American communities? What are racial and color hierarchies and how do they affect mixed-race people? What are real lived experiences of mixed-race people in the US?

Required Text

• Gaskins, P. F. (1999). What are you?: Voices of Mixed-Race Young People. New York: Macmillan.
• Ifekwunigwe, J. O. (Ed.) (2004). Mixed Race Studies: A Reader. New York: Routledge.
• Spickard, P. R., & Burroughs, W. J. (Eds.) (2000). We Are A People: Narrative and Multiplicity in Constructing Ethnic Identity. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

For more information, click here.

Multiethnic Multiracial Experience (Ethnic Studies 199)

University of Oregon
Winter 2010

Anselmo Villanueva, Ph.D.

This course will focus on the multiracial multiethnic experience in the United States, with particular emphasis on the Northwest. This course will provide students with a framework to understand this experience. The course will cover the history and background of the mixed race experience, anti-miscegenation laws and practices, research, identity models, resources, and case studies. The topic of trans-racial adoption will also be included in this course.

Traditionally, the multiracial experience has been defined as literally “Black” and “White” – people, relationships, and marriages that have been between White and African American people. This course will also include the experiences of multiple relationships and people, such as Asian and Latino, Black and Asian, and so on. Multiethnic relationships will also be included, such as Chinese and Korean.

Students will develop a broad understanding of the multiracial multiethnic experience. In the process, students will also have the opportunity to examine their own culture, ethnic identity, and background. Students will also examine attitudes and beliefs related to the mixed race experience.

For more information, click here.