300468 Critical Whiteness Studies in Science and Politics (S) (SoSe 2021)

Critical Whiteness Studies in Science and Politics

Until the 1990s, most social scientists did not study white racial identities. When talking about “race” in either science or politics, the focus has usually been people of color. Whiteness has thus often functioned as an unspoken social and epistemological norm. More recently, scholars in the field of critical whiteness studies have examined the history, philosophy, and politics of whiteness. Their work shows that, like “race” itself, whiteness lacks any genetic basis, and yet it has real effects in politics, education, medicine, science, and other social contexts. Most work in critical whiteness studies has focused on the United States, but similar research has been taken up in Germany and other countries. This interdisciplinary course will provide a critical introduction to the social scientific study of racism and whiteness. Questions will include: How have people conceptualized racism, antiracism, racialization, and whiteness in different historical and cultural contexts? How do white identities intersect with other group identities? How have implicit conceptions of whiteness shaped scientific research? How have they shaped teaching and learning? How do policies on the collection of social statistics in different countries affect public knowledge and attitudes about racism? What has been, and what should be, the role of people socially defined as white in antiracist initiatives in science and politics?

Lehrender:

Mark B. Brown, Ph.D., California State University, Sacramento
(https://www.csus.edu/faculty/b/brownm/)

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