[Grad_history_students] Seminar, Spring 2004: "Race, Postmodernism, and Culture"

[Emmanuel Eze]

SEMINAR: =93RACE, POSTMODERNISM, AND CULTURE=94 (EC Eze: Spring 2004)

In the Spring of 2000/2001 I conducted a seminar on =93Race and Modernity,=
=94 designed to complement the =93Critical Race Theory=94 seminar that =
Michael Dyson had taught in the Winter of the same academic year. Both =
seminars were excavations and survey of the racial principles that, many =
thinkers have argued, structured both the idea and the practices of =
modernity not only in the west but throughout the world. Working with =
authors like Hegel and Marx we explored, respectively, the rise of the =
civil society in Europe and the development of capitalism, these being =
historically irreversible events that framed themselves through concepts =
such as =93nation=94 (as in nation-state) and =93people=94 (as in races =
and ethnicities) as well as through other markers of group distinctions =
(social =93class,=94 for example). At the intersections of these concepts =
with the practical intentions internal to, first, imperialism, then, =
active colonialism we see arise the specifically modern human sciences of =
ethnography, anthropology, and =93development=94 economics: these and =
related sciences, we discovered in the seminars, were/are the disciplines =
through which familiar concepts like race, racialism, and cultural racism =
became not merely the unreflective habits of mind that resulted from =
accidental encounters of peoples, nations, and the forces of the market; =
the disciplines also rendered the idea of race (raciality) a significant =
modern philosophical program (raciology).

In the 2004 Spring quarter I will conduct another seminar: =93Race, =
Postmodernism, and Culture.=94 In this, one would be interested to raise =
the following questions (among others): What currency (e.g.: political, =
economic, and cultural), if any, does race still has in a world that has =
now confidently declared itself postmodern? In a time when conceptual =
entities like the =93self,=94 =93nation,=94 =93culture,=94 and even =
=93power=94 have been decentred and disseminated, how is one still able to =
think, for example, about a =93racial=94 subject? Or should we confidently =
speak about =93postracialism=94=97in parallel to the idea of not only =
postmodernity but also the postcolonial? What would be the content of such =
a rupture in raciality? How well might one orient one=92s thinking about =
these matters if we listened even more carefully not only to modernists =
like Hegel and Marx but also to their postmodernist and innovative =
developments in Kojeve, Derrida, and Foucault? Or Du Bois, Fanon, and =
Said?

Course code: PHL 656
Meeting time and place: Thursdays, 5:45-9:00 PM, Lincoln Park Campus
Contact and inquiries: eeze at depaul.edu