Mixed Race Studies

Scholarly perspectives on the mixed race experience.

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  • Being Mixed Race: What are the identity politics of the million-strong ‘Jessica Ennis generation’?

    Being Mixed Race: What are the identity politics of the million-strong ‘Jessica Ennis generation’?

    Women of the World Festival
    Southbank Centre
    2013-03-06 through 2013-03-10

    Sunday, 2013-03-10, 12:00-13:00Z
    Level 5 Function Room
    Royal Festival Hall

    Panelists:

    Emma Dabiri, Teaching Fellow
    Africa Department, School of African and Oriental Studies, London
    Visual Sociology Ph.D. Researcher, Goldsmiths University of London

    Reya El-Salahi, Radio broadcaster, television presenter, writer and journalist

    Kay Montano, Make-up Artist

    Chair:

    Emine Saner, Feature Writer
    The Guardian

    In the 2011 census over a million people in the UK classed themselves as ‘mixed race’—but for some, the label is meaningless.

    So what are the identity politics of the ‘Jessica Ennis generation’?

    Join broadcaster Reya El-Salahi, celebrity make-up artist Kay Montano, and Irish-Nigerian visual sociologist Emma Dabiri as they discuss the joys and challenges of being a dual heritage woman in modern-day Britain.

    For more information, click here. Listen to the panel here.

  • History 101.020: Betwixt and Between in the United States: Boundaries and the People who Defy Them

    History 101.020: Betwixt and Between in the United States: Boundaries and the People who Defy Them

    University of California, Berkeley
    Spring 2013

    MacKenzie Moore, Visiting Lecturer

    This 101 seminar is geared toward any student who wants to study the boundaries among and between people, nations, or states, broadly defined. It is also perfect for those wishing to explore what happens when such barriers are (inevitably) ruptured, questioned, or otherwise revealed to be unstable. Some, but by no means all, possible topics include: immigrant history, Native American/colonial contact, the history of American sexuality, frontier environments, mixed-race communities or individuals, the US/Mexico Borderlands, religious synthesis, or urban communities.  We will begin the semester by exploring theoretical approaches to the question of boundaries and categories and the power that sustains them. We will also discuss what such categories mean to people as they construct communities, nations, and identities. We will then consider specific examples of people who, out of choice or circumstance, defy those boundaries. The rest of the semester will be run as a writing and reading seminar. We will support and encourage each other through peer editing, research partners, and other boundary-crossing activities.

  • 346-Comparative Ethnic Literatures (Reg. No. 22253)

    346-Comparative Ethnic Literatures (Reg. No. 22253)

    University of Buffalo, The State University of New York
    Spring 2013

    Susan Muchshima Moynihan, Assistant Professor of English

    This course brings together Asian American and African American texts to destabilize our understandings of race; to situate racial formations in political and historical moments marked by the intersections of race, class, gender, sexuality, and national and transnational affiliations; and to consider how literary strategies facilitate political engagement with these issues. The course will proceed in four parts.

    Part I “Racial Ambiguity and the Dynamics of Passing” will engage Charles Chesnutt’s The House Behind the Cedars and short stories and essays by Edith Eaton (Sui Sin Far) and Winnifred Eaton (Onoto Watanna) to address how literary representations of the late-19th and early 20th centuries deployed mixed-race identities and attempts to pass within strict racial hierarchies marked by national and international politics…

    For more information, click here.

  • Mixed Race in Britain

    Mixed Race in Britain

    Kneeshaw Consulting
    2013-03-11

    In the 2011 census over a million people in the UK classed themselves as ‘mixed race’ – but for some, the label is unhelpful. The identity politics of the ‘Jessica Ennis generation’ was the subject of a workshop at the Women of the World Festival yesterday at London’s Southbank Centre. The latest data shows that 2.2% of the population are mixed race compared to 1.2% in 2001. Mixed-race is the fastest-growing minority in the UK. With this in mind four young British women of dual heritage talked about their experiences and debated whether having the box of ‘mixed race’ to tick offered them a sense of power or a meaningless classification, no better than ticking the ‘other’ box. Emma Dabiri, an Irish-Nigerian visual sociologist and writer, argued that race does not provide a stable or static concept of identity, but is a social construct. She talked about historical racialisation of identity, and stressed that race mixing does not eliminate racism. She gave examples of the media using images of mixed race people to promote an idea of a hip, cool generation, when in fact the experience of mixed race people, in the wider context of race relations in modern Britain, is complex and brings many challenges…

    Read the entire article here.

  • Barack Obama and the Contest for Identity through Self-Representation: HIST-UA 413

    Barack Obama and the Contest for Identity through Self-Representation: HIST-UA 413

    New York University
    Spring 2013

    Jeffrey Sammons, Professor of History

    This course will explore the life and career path of the nation’s first “black” president through a focus on his two autobiographies, which will be studied for their content, style, and grounding in the genre and relationship to select canonical texts of the more distant as well as recent past. The course also will pay close attention to representations by others of Obama by critics, supporters, and neutral commentators through a variety of media from books to film to television and radio to social media. As important as Obama is for his unprecendented political achievements, his multi-racial, multi-cultural, multi-national and multi-religious background and experience make him an ideal subject for exploring personal and group identity in a time of apparently increasing concern with Otherness.

  • AAS 490: Special Topics in Black World Studies: Section 008: Race and “Black Indians”

    AAS 490: Special Topics in Black World Studies: Section 008: Race and “Black Indians”

    University of Michigan
    Winter 2013
    Theme Semester Courses

    Tiya Miles, Professor of American Culture, Afroamerican and African Studies, and Native American Studies

    This seven week mini course is a special winter 2013 offering for the LSA Theme Semester on Race. The course will introduce students to a range of issues and experiences related to the topic and identity category of “Black Indians.” Popularized in the 1980s by a book of the same title, the term “Black Indians” is often used to identify and describe people of mixed-race African American and Native American ancestry. It is also applied to people with strong bi-cultural connections across these groups who may or may not have Black and native “blood” ties. This class will explore and analyze three major aspects of our subject matter:

    1. historical contexts for the interactions of Africans, African Americans and Native Americans;
    2. personal experiences stemming from mixed race and bi-cultural Afro-Native identities;
    3. meanings and effects of “racial stories” that have been crafted and told about “Black Indians” over time.

    Major themes and ideas that will emerge in our discussions include: indigeneity, European and U.S. colonialism, slavery, racial formation and racial hierarchy, mixed-race coupling and family making, tribal sovereignty, personal and community identities, and racial and cultural authenticity.

    Textbooks/Other Materials

    • Confounding the Color Line, Author: Brooks, James F.
    • Black Indians: A Hidden Heritage, Author: written by William Loren Katz.
    • Crossing Waters, Crossing Worlds: the African diaspora in Indian country, Author: edited by Tiya Miles and Sharon P. Holland.
    • IndiVisible: African-Native American Lives in the Americas, Author: general editor, Gabrielle Tayac.

    For more information, click here.

  • SOCI 329-Multiracial America

    SOCI 329-Multiracial America

    Rice University
    2013-2014

    Multiracial America examines the phenomenon of race mixing (e.g. interracial interaction, multiracial identity) from a sociological perspective. The course covers the legal, political, and cultural contexts of interracial interaction and how these impact current understanding of what it means to be “mixed race.” Recommended Prerequisite(s): SOCI 101.

  • RRS 625: Mixed Race Studies: A Comparative Focus

    RRS 625: Mixed Race Studies: A Comparative Focus

    San Francisco State University
    Spring 2013

    Introduction to the field of mixed race studies from a comparative and ethnic studies perspective. Exploration of various multiracial issues for ethnic studies from the viewpoint of scholars and cultural expressionists who are themselves of mixed-racial heritage. [Formerly ETHS 625]

  • Philosophy of Race (3050)

    Philosophy of Race (3050)

    Appalachian State University, Boone, North Carolina
    Fall 2013

    Kim Hall, Professor of Philosophy

    What is race?  What is the relationship between the category of race and racism?  What is the relationship between race and personal identity?  How do multiracial identities raise questions about the meaning of race and its relationship to identity?  What is the relationship between racialization and society?  What can philosophy help us to understand about race?  What are the relationships between race, gender, class, and sexuality?  How has the idea of race influenced the discipline and practice of philosophy?  This course will examine the metaphysical, epistemological, social, political, and ethical dimensions of race.  Class readings will include both historical and contemporary philosophical approaches to race and racism.

  • American Multicultural Studies (AMCS) 374: The Multiracial Experience

    American Multicultural Studies (AMCS) 374: The Multiracial Experience

    Sonoma State University, Rohnert Park, California
    2012-2013

    Elenita Fe (Leny) M Strobel, Associate Professor and Chair of American Multicultural Studies Department

    A general survey of the historical and contemporary experience of people claiming more than one racial or ethnic background. Emphasis will be given to inter-racial relations, the impact of political and social factors, and the cultural expressions of the multiracial experience.