DRAFT
Political Science 449/549
CRN: 35668
Tuesday/Thursday 12pm-1:30pm
Professor: Joseph Lowndes
Office: PLC 919
email: jlowndes@uoregon.edu
Course description:
In this course, we will examine the ways that race shaped the
major political dynamics in the United States from the Great Depression to the
present. We will analyze the
relationship of race politics to New Deal social policy; World War II, the Cold
War, civil rights and race liberation movements, the rise of the modern Right,
immigration policy, and current cross-ethnic political coalitions, the 2008
presidential election, and racial politics in the Obama era.
Materials:
For PS449, There are two books for this course, available in the bookstore. The books are The Unsteady March, by Philip Klinkner and Rogers Smith; and When Affirmative Action Was White, by Ira Katznelson. PS 5549 will have one additional text: Lowndes, Novkov and Warren, eds. Race and American Political Development. All other readings will be available on Blackboard, and are indicated as such.
Requirements for 449:
This is a heavy reading course
Requirements for 549:
You will write one research paper (roughly 35000 words). The abstract for the paper will be due on Monday of Week Six, and I will hold individual meetings with you that week to talk them over. The final paper will be due Monday of finals week.
Policies:
Students with disabilities. If you have a documented disability and anticipate needing accommodations in this course, please make arrangements to meet with the professor soon. Please request that the Counselor for Students with Disabilities send a letter verifying your disability.
Class attendance. You will be expected to attend class. If you miss a class day on which a quiz is given, you must bring a doctor’s note to re-take it. Unexcused absences will be taken into account in determining your class participation grade, regardless of the reason.
Regrading of materials. You may request re-grading of materials that the instructors have graded. If you wish to make such a request, contact me for a copy of the re-grading policy. You will be asked to provide a written explanation of why you wish to have the assignment regarded.
Plagiarism or cheating. This one’s simple: don’t do it. Don’t even think about doing it. Plagiarism is the use of someone else’s words or ideas without giving the original author credit by citing him or her. If you use someone else’s language directly, you must use quotation marks. If you rely on another person’s ideas in creating your argument, you must provide a citation. This is obviously required for research papers, but I will expect careful attention to citation in the argumentative essays as well. If you have any questions about plagiarism, please contact me before you submit the assignment for grading. If you plagiarize or cheat in this class, the BEST outcome you can hope to achieve is a failing grade. Ignorance will not provide a defense to the application of this policy.
Week One: Introduction:
Race as a Political Phenomenon
Course introduction
- Omi and Winant, “On the Theoretical Status of Race”
- in-class Film: Race: the Power of an Illusion
Extra readings for
549:
Lowndes, Novkov, and Warren, chapters 1 and 4
Week Two: Race and the New Deal
- “The New Deal” from Alan Brinkley, American History: A Survey
- Katznelson, preface and chapter 2
- Katznelson, chapters 3 and 4
Extra readings for
549:
-Lowndes, Novkov, and Warren, Chapter 7
Week Three: World War Two
- Klinkner and Smith, chapters 5 and 6
- Ronald Takaki, “The Watershed of World War II: Democracy and Race” from
- Korematsu v. United
States, 323 U.S. 214 (1944)
Extra readings for
549:
- Lowndes, Novkov, and Warren, Chapter 8
Week Four: Cold War Civil Rights
- Klinkner and Smith, Chapter 7
- Mary Dudziak,
“Telling Stories about Race and Democracy” from Cold War Civil Rights.
- Nikhil Pal Singh, “Decolonizing America” from Black is a Country
- Film: “Negroes With Guns: Rob Williams and Black Power”
Extra readings for
549:
-Michael Rogin, “American political demonology”
Week Five: Black
Liberation and state response
- Klinkner and Smith, Chapter 8
- Martin Luther King, Jr., “Give Us the Ballot and We Will Transform the South”
- Malcolm X, “The Ballot or the Bullet”
Extra readings
for 549:
- Lowndes,
Novkov, and Warren, Chapter 11
Week Six: The Politics of Backlash
- Naomi Murakawa, “The origins of the carceral crisis: racial order as “law and order in postwar American politics”
- Jonathan Reider, “The Rise of the ‘Silent Majority.”
Wednesday, 11/4
In-class midterm
- William Connolly, “The Desire to Punish”
Extra readings for
549:
- Lowndes, Novkov, and Warren, Chapter 10
Week Seven: Antidiscrimination, affirmative action, and
colorblindness
-Katznelson,
chapter 6
-Brown, et al,
“Color-blindess as Color Consciousness” in Whitewashing
Race
- Klinkner and
Smith, Chapter 9
Extra readings for
549:
Lowndes, Novkov, and Warren, Chapter 12
Week Eight: Race, immigration
and coalition-building
- Claire Jean Kim, “The Racial Triangulation of Asian Americans” Politics and Society, Vol 27, #1, March 1999, pgs 105-138.
-Laura
Pulido, “A Day Without Immigrants: The
Racial and Class Politics
of Immigrant
Exclusion”
Extra readings for 549:
-Victoria Hattam, In the Shadow of Race, chapters 6 and 7
Week Nine: The 2008
Presidential Election
- Richard Thompson Ford, “Barack is the New
Black: Obama and the Promise/Threat of the Post-Civil Rights Era”
- David Sirota, “The Clinton Firewall”
- Henry Louis Gates Jr. “A Conversation
with William Julius Wilson on the Election of Barack Obama”
Extra readings for 549:
-Mike Davis, “Obama at Manassas”
Week Ten: The future
of race politics
-TBA
-TBA
Extra readings for
549:
- Lowndes,
Novkov, and Warren, Chapter 9