ANTH 360 - History of the Race Concept in Anthropology

This class explores this trajectory of the concept of race from an anthropological perspective from the 19th through the 21st centuries. Anthropology has played both expected and surprising roles in the formation of Western ideas about race and the substance of human difference. We’ll approach race from objectivist biological (what some academics and researchers think really is there when it comes to race) and cultural constructionist (what other academics and researchers think is “racial” because of past and current power relations) perspectives. The course objectives are to become conversant with the historical and cultural context of the concept of race as it has existed in anthropology and the social sciences in general. Additionally, we will explore theoretical traditions in anthropology that bear on our shifting notions of race. How has anthropology contributed to both contemporary academic and popular notions of race in the United States? What does it actually mean to say that “race is a social construction”? What kind of theory and evidence is marshaled in anthropology and anthropological science to prove that race is one thing or another, and what kinds of controversies still exist over this ancient and modern marker of human difference?

Pre-req: Instructor Permission
3 credits